CEC Girls Skate To 1-1 Tie With Bemidji

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Feb 5

Kerry Rodd-NSO

It took a late goal by a senior captain and a tremendous night in the nets from another senior captain, but in the end the Cloquet-Esko-Carlton girls hockey team had just enough to pull out a 1-1 road tie with Bemidji on Friday night. The win brings the Lumberjack Axe back to Cloquet. The Axe is a traveling trophy between the two schools who share the same mascot name. CEC earned the Axe last year with a win and the tie kept the trophy in Cloquet for another season.

After a scoreless first period, Bemidji got on the board at 15:49 of the second period on a goal by Allie Lapp, a sophomore forward, with a lone assist going to Karleigh Wolkerstorfer a freshman. That lead held up throughout the remainder of the second period and Bemidji was up 1-0 entering the final period.

CEC finally scored on an unassisted goal by senior forward Courtney Esse at 8:42 of the period. Esse’s goal helped preserve a stellar effort again in goal by Sarah Gustafson who was counted on to make 43 saves on 44 shots in the game. Both Esse and Gustafson are senior captains for the Jacks.

While Gustafson was busy on her side of the rink, her counterpart for Bemidji, Maria Thompson, made a total of 16 saves on 17 shots.

Seeding for the Section 7AA tournament will take place on Sunday and NSO will have the pairings on Sunday evening. At this point, it appears that CEC could be anywhere from the #3 to #4 seed for a second year in a row.
Last year, the Jacks proved that their seed number didn’t matter after they knocked off Grand Rapids/Greenway in the section semifinals and then defeated Proctor-Hermantown-Marshall in the championship game played at the Heritage Center in Duluth.

Kerry Rodd can be reached at kerry@northlandsportsonline.com