Sports
Lumberjacks show promise in season-opening series
Matthew Semisch
10/28/2014
There is such a thing as reading for pleasure, but looking through the box scores of Dakota College at Bottineau’s (DCB) pair of season-opening losses last weekend isn’t it.
DCB did a lot of things right, however, in its first two games of the Lumberjacks’ 2014-15 campaign.
The Winkler Royals, a senior men’s league team from Manitoba, stormed into the Bottineau Community Arena and came away winners twice. Winkler defeated DCB 8-3 on Saturday night before besting the Jacks again on Sunday afternoon by a 5-2 count.
DCB exhibited signs of life on Saturday, but it took a while for the spark to show. Winkler was clearly the better team in the opening period, and the Royals sent DCB back to its dressing room for the first intermission down 6-1.
Winkler opened the scoring just 1:49 into the game when Royals forward Dwight Heppner wristed a shot from the slot high stick-side past DCB goaltender Ryan Miner.
Ex-Lumberjack Marlin Froese then picked up the first of his two goals in the opening frame at 6:46. Wheeling around the back of Miner’s net, Froese came back out on the other side and buried the puck high into the net.
He scored again at 10:21 of the same period before assisting on two more Royals goals before the period was over.
Froese ended the game with four goals and two assists. That matched the damage he did against DCB for Winkler last Oct. 26, one day shy of a year prior to the Royals’ win on Saturday.
DCB sophomore forward Brett Hebel scored his team’s lone goal in the first period 2:17 in when he put home the rebound from a shot by linemate Lucas Walsh.
Winkler looked very comfortable throughout that first period and found itself heading into the second period with a five-goal lead. Jacks head coach Travis Rybchinski felt that the deficit was due to DCB not knowing what to expect from the Royals.
“I don’t think it’s rust so much as it’s down to just inexperience and not knowing what to expect,” Rybchinski said. “The tough part about playing these Canadian amateur teams is that they’re always a lot stronger and smarter.
“Hopefully we can learn from that experience, but when guys don’t know what to expect, it makes the game tough.”
On top of that, though, Rybchinski felt that much of the Jacks’ misery early on was self-inflicted.
“A lot of the trouble we had we put on ourselves,” Rybchinski said. “We had a lot standing around in the defensive zone, and that tells the story of I think four of their first five goals.”
Rybchinski pulled Miner after the first period in favor of backup goaltender Christian Vivian. A fire had seemingly been lit under the Jacks, and they often looked the better team in the second and third periods.
Froese scored his third goal of the game 2:30 into the second period after taking a back-door feed from linemate Andrew Froese. DCB then pulled a goal back with 9.6 seconds left in the frame when Jacks forward Drew Ross buried the first of his three goals on the weekend past Royals goalie Mark Friesen.
The two teams both scored once each again in the third period. DCB freshman Phoenix McElroy-Scott picked up his first goal for the team 4:26 into the frame when he put away at the far post the rebound from a Dan Fyckes shot.
DCB ended up outshooting the Royals 47-42, but the Royals’ scoring rampage in the game’s first period ended up being the difference.
ROYALS CLINCH SERIES SWEEP
DCB looked like a much better team in Sunday’s rematch, but the Jacks ultimately fell to Winkler again, this time by a 5-2 score.
Ross scored both of DCB’s goals in the game, and both were game-tying goals in the first and third periods. Ross’s tally at 5:02 of the third frame tied the game at 2-2, but Winkler scored three goals in the final 14 minutes to pull off a sweep of the teams’ two-game set.
Vivian started in the rematch and posted 27 saves.
Speaking after the game, Rybchinski focused on the positives DCB can take from its first two games of the season.
“We’re right where we want to be. It would’ve been nice to get a win or two,” Rybchinski said, “But we worked hard all weekend and we’re happy with what we were able to accomplish.”
DCB will travel to Michigan next weekend to face Finlandia.