Sports
Braves blank Firebirds in season opener at home
Tyler Ohmann
11/29/2011
Two seniors brought their finest efforts to the rink as the Bottineau-Rugby Braves rolled to a 9-0 blanking of Devils Lake on the season opener last Saturday in Bottineau.
Logan Millican scored five goals and Cody Brooks stopped 15 shots in route to a shutout.
“We really started out the season well I think,” Brooks said. “The matchup wasn’t what I thought it was going to be, but we came out and played really good defensively and offensively.”
The Braves jumped out to an early lead in the first period as Millican notched his first marker of the night. Junior Cody Longie assisted on the play.
The Braves added two more in the period. The first was from sophomore Andrew Hill, who took passes from Kyle Volk and Luke Amsbaugh.
Millican scored his second goal of the night at 16:08 in the first period on an unassisted goal to put the Braves up 3-0.
Brooks was thankful for the quick start.
“I think the first goal is crucial in any hockey game,” Brooks said. “You score the first goal and that is momentum right there, and that is one of the biggest things in hockey--momentum.”
Despite the win and the quick start, Braves Head Coach David Hoff was still a bit uneasy about the consistency shown on the ice.
“I was a little dissappointed actually. We didn’t play hard enough consistently,” Hoff said. “I thought we were a little flat-footed out there at times, maybe it just came a little too easy out there.”
“I just want to see more consistent hard play in the offensive zone,” Hoff added.
The Braves tacked on four more goals in the second period, including two more from Millican.
The first came at 4:02 when senior Kyle Volk took a pass from defenseman Ging Martin to score the Braves’ fourth goal.
Sophomore Harrison Aide also hit the back of the net with an unassisted wrister at 13:46.
Seniors Jackson Bernstein and Zach Kihle, as well as Martin assisted on the Millican goals.
Despite the strong effort on offense, Hoff felt like something was missing with the Braves on the ice.
“We haven’t used any line consistency. We have changed lines just about every day in practice,” Hoff said. “Maybe that is why we just didn’t have any chemistry out there tonight. We had a lot of good efforts out there tonight, but we need to try and build a little chemistry and we will do that here the next week.”
Millican capped off his terrific night with a third period goal. Martin got his third assist on the play.
Amsbaugh rounded out the goal scoring at 11:36 as he slammed a rebound from an Aide shot past Devils Lake backup goaltender Holden Kurtz
The other story line besides the Millican scoring barrage, was the Braves defensive effort, which pleased Hoff.
“We talk a lot about stick on puck. We don’t want any pucks to get to the net clean,” Hoff said. “On the other hand when they did get to the net, Cody (Brooks) came up with the saves we needed.”
Brooks was a big part of that as he made a couple key saves, especially on the penalty kill.
“I saw every save tonight for sure,” Brooks said. “There were a couple that were pretty close, and they had some good chances, but overall I thought we played really good defensively.”
He gave a lot of credit to his defensive teammates, four of which are fellow seniors.
“They did a lot of stick on puck and steering guys into the corner to force a bad shot,” Brooks said. “They didn’t get a lot of prime time scoring opportunities.”
Brooks will be doing the bulk of the goaltending duties after sharing the role with Michael Kornkven a year ago. He is embracing the role.
“If he puts me out there, I’m going to play my hardest no matter what game it is,” Brooks said.
The win gives the Braves a strong win to being the season. Bottineau finished third in the West Region last season and were picked to finish second in the region this season by the region’s coaches.
“It is a good start, something to build off of,” Hoff said. “I think it was important to finish off the shut out, not just from a team stand point, but you want to finish that off for the goaltender as well.”
Bottineau will host a pair of region opponents next weekend. They start with Jamestown at 7:30 p.m. on Friday. They will then host Dickinson at 3 p.m. on Saturday.