Sports

Bottineau Stars breeze past Williston

By Tyler Ohmann

12/17/2013

The Bottineau Stars earned their first win in a big way as they skated past the Williston Cougars 15-0 last Sunday in front of the home crowd in Bottineau.

The Stars previously tied twice to Neepawa and fell by one-goal margins to Neepawa and the Bismarck Avalanche.

It was a welcome change to get a blowout win.

“It felt really good, especially to win so handily,” said Sonja Gilje. “It gives us a better look on the league, because we beat them more than the other teams beat them.”

“Hopefully we should do good in the rest of the league too,” Gilje added.

Gilje, who regularly plays defense, got a chance to play forward in the game and took every advantage of it by scoring a team-best four times.

“I wasn’t even expecting to play forward, and then he (coach Matt Johnson) just decided to (put me in),” Gilje said.

Despite the goals, three of which came right in a row in the first and second periods and gave the Stars a 5-0 lead, Gilje would rather stick to playing defense.

“I don’t really like playing forward,” Gilje said. “It’s too confusing.”

The Stars opened up the scoring on the day with a power play goal from Hunter Bennie, who was assisted by Victoria Gullett.
Gullett put the Stars up 2-0 later in the period as she scored on passes from Katie Kerslake and Bailey Neubauer.

Then came Gilje’s scoring barrage of three consecutive goals. The first two were unassisted, but Bennie notched a helper on the third goal.

The Stars would add four more goals in the second period to go up 9-0.

Two of the goals came on the power play as Paige Vad and Kerslake both notched markers with the advantage. Bennie and Jacie Ceglowksi picked up assists on the goals.

Ceglowski, who normally is between the pipes for the Stars, and was in the first period earning three saves, came out to play forward for the final two periods.

In the third period she found a knack for scoring as she found the back of the net twice in the final frame.

It was something that Gilje liked to see.

“Our goalie got to score twice, so it was nice to give her that,” Gilje said.

Megan Olson also had a pair of goals in the game, her first two of the year. She scored on an unassisted marker in the second period and a goal with 6:06 left in the third period. Alexis Kihle assisted on the second goal.

The final three goals scored by Bottineau all came on unassisted plays by Stars players. The first was a Cheyenne Sturlaugson shot that got past the Cougars goalie at 11:30.

Kerslake scored her second of the game less than two minutes later to put the Stars up 13-0.

After Olson’s second goal, Gilje capped off the Stars’ scoring flurry with her final and fourth goal of the evening on her second unassisted goal of the night.

Williston goalie Neige DeLaunay was mighty busy in the game as she stopped 64 of Bottineau’s 79 shots.

Alexis Gullett, who came in and played goalie for the Stars the final two periods, finished with a pair of saves as Bottineau out shot Williston 79-5.

Next up for the Stars (1-2-2) is a weekend in Fargo area. Bottineau starts off with a game on Saturday morning in Wahpeton against their 19U team.

At 5 p.m. that evening the Stars will match up against West Fargo. Bottineau closes out the weekend with a 10 a.m. game on Sunday against Fargo in Scheels Arena.

The next home game for the Stars will not be until Dec. 29 when they host Watford City.