Sports
Braves streak ends, still hope to push for top seed
Tyler Ohmann
02/05/2013
Bottineau-Rugby (BR) continued their pursuit of the top seed in the West Region this past Friday on their home ice with a 7-4 win over Mandan.
The win put BR five points behind first place Bismarck Century. Century has only two three-point games left, while BR has two three-point games and a six-point game in Saturday’s make up finale with Bismarck High.
If both teams were to win out the Braves would capture the top seed by one point.
However, it wasn’t all great news for the Braves over the weekend as West Fargo ended BR’s 11-game win streak.
Braves against Braves
The BR Braves and the Mandan Braves met for the second time this season and it ended in the same result a three-goal win by BR.
It started a little slow for both teams as neither Braves squad netted a first-period goal. However, both teams fired hard in the second period. Luke Amsbaugh one-timed a fantastic pass from Harrison Aide to score BR’s first goal.
Aide would score later in the period on a pass from Nigel Hageness.
Amsbaugh gave BR a 3-2 lead to close out the second period. Aide and senior Cody Longie assisted on the play.
Then the touted BR offense emerged in the final frame as BR scored four third-period goals. Aide scored two shorthanded, unassisted goals to kick off the BR scoring. The pair of third-period goals also gave Aide a hat trick.
Longie then netted his first goal of the evening to extend the Bottineau lead. Amsbaugh and Andrew Hill assisted on the goal.
Amsbaugh netted his very own hat trick with a goal late in the third. Longie and Hill assisted.
Riley Monson had 24 saves in the win as BR out shot Mandan 40-28.
“It took us a little while to get going on Friday night against Mandan, but I thought we did a good job of staying after them and eventually started taking care of their opportunities,” BR head coach David Hoff stated.
West Fargo slip up
While BR was looking to extend their winning streak to 12 games, West Fargo was hoping to knock off one of the top teams in the West Region.
In the end the underdog Packers notched the upset with a 7-4 win over BR in Rugby.
The Packers leaped out to an early lead as they pressured the BR net in the first period and wound up earning two first-period goals.
BR woke up in the second period as Wyatt Johnson scored on passes from Aide and Amsbaugh.
Aide and Amsbaugh both notched goals to keep the Braves in the contest, as they trailed 5-3 after two periods. Amsbaugh assisted on the Aide goal, while Aide and Longie notched helpers on the Amsbaugh goal.
BR allowed two more goals in the final frame, while Aide took passes from Amsbaugh and Johnson for the Braves lone goal of the final frame.
Monson stopped 37-of-44 shots, but BR was out shot 44-27.
Hoff stated that tempo and penalties made the difference.
“West Fargo did a better job than we did coming out and dictating the tempo and style of play,” Hoff stated. “They got after us pretty good early and we took some sloppy penalties that did not help us.”
Hoff was mixed in his feelings of how the weekend went.
“It was a good weekend in the sense that we got the region win on Friday night against Mandan,” Hoff stated. “However it was disappointing to finish the weekend with a loss to West Fargo.”
BR closes out their regular season this week. They play in Minot at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday and host Century on Friday and Bismarck High on Saturday.
The game will decide what seed the Braves have entering the West Region Tournament that starts on Thursday Feb. 14 in Minot. The Braves could still finish anywhere between the first and fourth seed.
Notes:
Harrison Aide eclipsed the 70-point plateau for the season this past weekend. He now has 74 points in 17 games this season 25 points ahead of the next highest scorer in the state, who happens to be teammate and top scoring defenseman Cody Longie. With anywhere from five to nine games remaining for the Braves depending on their success in the playoffs, Aide needs to get 26 more points to break the state record, set by Jeremy Asheim in 1992 with 99 points.