Sports

Braves put on Jekyll and Hyde show in split

By Matthew Semisch

02/10/2015

David Hoff’s Bottineau-Rugby (B-R) boys’ hockey team might not have frustrated its head coach more all season than it did on Saturday night.

The night before, the Braves turned in their best performance of the season in a 3-2 win over West Region rival Mandan in Rugby. 

On Saturday at Bottineau Community Arena, though, that same B-R team crashed back to earth in an 11-0 loss to West Fargo.

“I told the guys I thought we had our best effort of the year last night and we had the worst effort of the year tonight, and that’s disappointing,” Hoff said. “Part of what you do this time of the year is a matter of consistency, and we need to be more consistent than we were.”

B-R WINS BATTLE OF THE BRAVES

Friday night’s game at Rugby’s Al Wentz Arena went much more to B-R’s liking. Luke Amsbaugh, the state’s leading scorer, found the back of Mandan’s nets twice and goaltender Ethan Clements made 34 saves en route to a 3-2 win.

Amsbaugh’s pair of tallies - the first coming 3:48 into the game, the second 6:27 into the second period - sandwiched an Austyn Lorenz goal that went in 15:58 into the game.

Mandan scored once each in both the first and second periods, but Clements stopped all 12 shots he faced in the third period to help ensure the victory.

“I thought that might have been our best competitive effort of the season by the team as a group,” Hoff said. “We were able to win a (one-goal) game, which we have not done to this point of the season.  

“We had solid goaltending, our defensemen really defended hard and our forwards were effective putting pucks deep into the offensive zone, especially as the game wore on.”

PACKERS WIN BIG

For as good as B-R was on Friday against Mandan in Rugby, the Braves were largely as poor on Saturday in Bottineau against West Fargo.

B-R started the game well but a couple of bad shifts near the end of the first period ended with West Fargo taking a 2-0 lead into the first intermission. 

“I liked where we were in the first 13 minutes of the game,” Hoff said, “and then we had a couple terrible shifts, went down 2-0 and it’s like the tires went flat.” 

The Packers then scored four goals in the second period and five in the fifth.

B-R (9-9-0 overall, 6-7-0-0 West Region) will wrap up regular season play this week at Minot on Thursday and at home against Bismarck Century in Bottineau on Friday at 7:30 p.m.