Sports

Braves hockey loses three in Minnesota trip

By Tyler Ohmann

01/03/2012

The Bottineau-Rugby Braves hockey team did not enjoy any victories in their trip to Minnesota over the holiday break, but they did learn something about themselves.

“Despite losing all three games in the tournament, it was an excellent learning experience for our guys,” stated Braves Head Coach David Hoff.

The tournament which the Braves took part in was the Thief River Falls tournament on Dec. 27-29. The Braves lost all their games in the tourney as they played a few of the gopher state’s premier teams.
First on Tuesday the Braves fell short against Crookston. The Braves fell behind early and trailed 4-2 entering the final period and wound up with a 6-2 loss.

“We were sluggish the first day, our guys would like to play that one over,” Hoff stated. “We just were not sharp.”

Goals for Bottineau-Rugby were scored by Nigel Hageness and Harrison Aide. Zach Kihle assisted on both goals.

Cody Brooks had 26 saves in net for the Braves, but got his first loss of the season.

Thanks to an impressive performance by Brooks, Wednesday’s game was closer, but the result was the same a 4-1 loss.

Brooks finished with 52 saves as he was peppered with Thief River Falls shots in the loss.

Again the Braves fell behind early, trailing 2-0 at the end of one and 3-0 after two.

Senior, and scoring leader, Logan Millican, cut the lead to two in the third with an unassisted goal.

The Braves again tumbled on Thursday 8-2 against a solid Hermantown team.

The Braves gave up four goals in the second period after tying it at 1-1 early in the period.

The game-tying goal was scored by Aide. Millican and Nick Monson were credited with assists.

The Braves cut it to 5-2 in the third period as freshman Luke Amsbaugh scored on passes from Jackson Bernstein and Kyle Volk.

Brooks again was bombarded in net stopping 42 of 50 shots.

Hoff was happy with Brooks’ performance over the weekend, especially the final two games.

“Cody Brooks really played well the last two days of the tournament. He was good the first day but really sharp the second and third days,” Hoff stated. “When you have to kill 16 minutes of penalties each game your goaltender has to be your best penalty kill player.”

Hoff was also pleased with his entire teams performance the final two days.

“I thought we really competed hard the last two days against Thief River Falls and Hermantown.  Both teams are very skilled and very deep.  It was fun to play against both of them,” Hoff stated. “We had a few breakdowns in both games that they took advantage of.”  

“It also was tough in that we were called for eight penalties both nights.  The penalties were 8-3 against us both nights,” Hoff added. “We spent a lot of time killing penalties, but we actually did a great job of it both nights but they got a lot of offensive zone time on the power play.  We only gave up one power play goal the entire tournament.”

Bottineau will play at 7:30 p.m. this Friday in Jamestown. They will then travel to play Mandan on Saturday.