Hermantown Wins TRF Tournament, Remains Perfect

Dec 29, 2011

Kerry Rodd-NSO

Hermantown continued a dominant early season run on Thursday night by beating Bottineau, North Dakota 8-2 in the championship game of the Thief River Falls Hockey Tournament at Engelsted Arena.

After facing their toughest challenge in the first round and disposing of the home team 3-1, the Hawks then beat Crookston 11-1 in the semi final round before pounding Bottineau in the title game.

Brian LeBlanc gave the Hawks a 1-0 edge at 5:46 of the first period with the assists going to Matt Lord and Jeremy Amys. That would be the only goal for the Hawks in the period despite outshooting Bottineau 15-5 in the opening stanza.

Bottineau tied the game at 4:08 of the second period, but that seemed to serve as a wake-up call for the Hawks who went on a scoring binge. At 5:48 it was Jared Thomas from Jared Kolquist. At 11:30 it was Bo Gronseth scoring from Kolquist and Travis Koepke. Hermantown scored again at 12:46 on the first of back-to-back goals by Amys. The first Amys goal was assisted by LeBlanc and Paul Herrold and the second goal, which came at 15:21, was assisted by Lord and Herrold. When the dust cleared the Hawks had built a 5-1 lead and they had outshot Bottineau 33-10 through two periods.

Koepke scored the first of three third-period power play goals for the Hawks at 4:12 with Chris Benson and Jake Zeleznikar assisting. Bottineau managed to stem the tide briefly at 5:48 with a goal, but Andrew Mattson answered at 6:56 with another power play goal with Thomas and Kolquist assisting. The game’s final goal was scored at 11:28 by Benson with Gronseth and Zeleznikar adding assists.

For the game the Hawks put 50 shots on goal, while Zach Edgerton finished with 15 saves on 17 shots in net for Hermantown.

The Hawks are a perfect 10-0 on the season.

Kerry Rodd can be reached at kerry@northlandsportsonline.com