CEC Ends Regular Season With Overtime Loss

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Jan 30, 2012

Kerry Rodd-NSO

Playing at home for their final regular season game of the year the Cloquet-Esko-Carlton girls hockey team dropped a 3-2 overtime decision to the Hibbing Blue Jackets when Hibbing scored just 47 seconds into the extra session on the power play.

Rylie Chambers gave the Blue Jackets a 1-0 lead at 1:03 of the first period on assists from Raini Heybloom and Nicole DeBoom.

The Lumberjacks finally knotted things at 1-1 in the second period on a Caitlin Lilly shorthanded goal at 2:23, sending the teams into the third period in a deadlock.

Hibbing gave themselves the lead at 11:39 of the third period when Katie Dye pumped in a goal, but CEC responded at 14:37 when Emily Gustafson scored from Kristi Konietzko and that goal helped send the game to overtime.

Unfortunately for the Lumberjacks, they ran into major trouble towards the tail end of the third period when they took back-to-back penalties for checking and interference which put them two players short entering the extra session. The Lumberjacks did manage to kill of one of those penalties, but eventually the Blue Jackets cashed in at the 47 second mark when Leah Coughlin slammed a puck past CEC goalie Alyssa Acheson giving Hibbing the win.

For the game Acheson finished with 17 saves on 20 shots, while Dory Johnson made 22 saves on 24 shots by CEC.

The loss drops the Jacks to 11-12 on the season. The sectional seedings will be decided this week for the playoffs begin on February 9.

Kerry Rodd can be reached at kerry@northlandsportsonline.com