Sports

Braves split on the road

By Bottineau Courant Staff

01/21/2014

Bottineau-Rugby (BR) split a pair of away games on a long road trip to the south and west of North Dakota this past weekend.

The Braves downed Hazen-Beulah (HB) 12-2 to begin on Friday night, but fell 7-2 in Dickinson on Saturday.

In Friday’s contest BR flew around the ice and scored early and often. Luke Amsbaugh opened the scoring for the Braves with a goal off of an assist by Harrison Aide.

Noah Grant put the Braves up 2-0 with a goal at 7:54 in the first. Amsbaugh and sophomore Austyn Lorenz assisted on the play.
Aide scored less than 30 seconds later to put BR up 3-0.

Amsbaugh assisted on the goal.

At 11:43 in the first period Cody Bedlion scored the first leg of a hat trick. Amsbaugh earned the helper on the play.

Bedlion struck again later in the first on a pass from Andrew Hill, and BR went up 5-0.

The North Stars finally found the back of the net themselves later in the first period to draw the game to 5-1.

However, the Braves were far from done as Amsbaugh struck again in the second period. Aide assisted on the play.

Eighteen seconds later Nick Schaan went unassisted to put the Braves up 7-1.

Bedlion earned his hat trick at 13:09 of the second period as he threaded it past North Star goalie Tyler Murschel and knocked him out of the game.

HB scored later in the period to cut the lead to 8-2, but the Braves were yet to be stopped, even by a new goalie.

David Arstein scored at 14:00 of the third on a pass from Hunter Haakenson.

Aide scored for the second time on the night a little later thanks to assists from Casey Tooke and Amsbaugh.

Freshman Ethan Kippen scored a goal later in the third with an assist coming from Braden Pewe.

The Braves scoring rounded out when Amsbaugh netted his hat trick on an assist from Shawn Schaan.

It went the complete opposite for the Braves on Saturday as they were unable to top a Dickinson squad that they beat 9-4 back on Nov. 30 in Bottineau.

This time around the Midgets got the better of the Braves as they went on to win 7-2 after opening up a 3-0 lead in the first period.
BR cut the lead to two on an Amsbaugh goal on a pass from Aide, but the Midgets answered right back.

Dickinson scored twice more in the second to make their lead 5-1.
Aide found the back of the net in the third on an assist from Amsbaugh, but that was all the offense BR could muster.

The Midgets scored twice more in the third to make it a five-goal win and gain three points.

Riley Monson was bombarded in net as he stopped 48-of-55 shot attempts, and the Midgets out shot the Braves 55-24.

The road trips continue for the Braves (9-4, 6-2) as they travel to Bismarck to take on Bismarck Century at 7:15 p.m. on Saturday. BR closes out January with a game the following Friday at home against Mandan.

The Braves also played against rival Minot last night in Bottineau, but scores and stats were unavailable by press time.