Hermantown Gets Big 5-2 Road Win Over Grand Rapids

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Jan 10, 2012

Kerry Rodd-NSO

If there was any question that the Hermantown Hawks are for real this season, those questions were answered when the Hawks went on the road Tuesday night and beat a very good Grand Rapids Thunderhawks team 5-2 in a game Hermantown dominated.

The teams split goals in the first period with Nate Mondry scoring for Grand Rapids and Jared Thomas scoring for the Hawks. Thomas’ goal was unassisted and scored at 14:18.

Hermantown pulled away in the second period with the only two goals of the stanza. At the 30 second mark it was Chris Benson scoring from Jared Kolquist and then at 14:58 the Hawks connected on a power play goal from Bo Gronseth that was assisted by Paul Harrold and Travis Koepke.

Benson scored his second goal of the game just 40 seconds into the third period when he hammered home a shot on the power play that was assisted by Thomas and Kolquist. At 7:15 Avery Peterson cut the lead for the Thunderhawks, but Hermantown added a final goal at 12:31 when Andrew Mattson scored from Thomas.

The Hawks also outshot Grand Rapids 33 to 22. Hermantown goalie Matt Mensinger made 20 saves for Hermantown, while Patrick Flaherty finished with 27 saves for Grand Rapids.

Hermantown improved to 13-0 on the season, while the Thunderhawks fall to 10-4 overall on the season.

Kerry Rodd can be reached at kerry@northlandsportsonline.com