Sports
Minot, Century down Braves
Matthew Semisch
02/17/2015
David Hoff’s Bottineau-Rugby (B-R) boys’ hockey team has shown signs of development in recent weeks, and that’s what every coach wants to see near the end of the season.
Promise hasn’t been accompanied by many victories, though, and the Braves’ season will end next week if the wins keep staying away.
B-R fell twice last week, 7-1 at Minot High on Thursday and 5-1 at home Friday night against Bismarck Century. Those two defeats saw the Braves finish their 2014-15 regular season with a 9-11-0 overall record and a 6-9-0 mark against West Region rivals.
What’s even more worrying, though, is that B-R lost five of its final six games of the regular season.
The Braves also learned last week that they’d locked up the No. 6 seed in this week’s West Region tournament in Bismarck. B-R will open postseason play on Thursday at 7:30 p.m. against No. 3 Minot. Four of the eight teams in the competition - those who win twice at regionals - will advance to this year’s state tournament Feb. 26-28 at the Scheels Arena in Fargo.
To get there, though, B-R will need to put in more well-rounded team performances than they did last weekend.
MAGI MYSTIFY B-R
At Minot’s Maysa Arena on Thursday, B-R goaltender Ethan Clements was arguably his team’s best player. Despite allowing seven goals, he stopped 45 other Magicians shots and kept the score from becoming worse than it was in the end.
Austyn Lorenz scored the Braves’ lone goal on the night 2:17 into the third period on a feed from linemate Luke Amsbaugh.
BRAVES DROP FINALE
Clements was again one of the Braves’ leading lights on Friday in their regular season finale against Bismarck Century. The junior netminder from Rugby finished the game with 37 saves.
His team only scored once yet again in the 5-1 loss to the Patriots, though. This time, Noah Grant was B-R’s only scorer.
More offense will be vital next week, but so will more consistency.
“We’re all in positions that we can get better at,” Hoff said. “Ethan has to work to get one more save, our defensemen need to get the puck out of our zone a little bit better, our forwards have to do a better job of playing hard on the forecheck, and we just need to get better.”