Lakeville South beats Owatonna 6-4

South and Owatonna traded scores in the opening period.  The Huskies took a 4-3 lead in the second only to lose the lead with two late second period goals 5-4.  South added a third period goal to win 6-4.

The two teams played evenly for the first four minutes of the opening period.  Both moved the puck out of their zone, but where Owatonna established control and moved the puck inside the Cougar’s zone, the Cougars attacked off the rush.  Owatonna’s defense would turn the puck and set up in the Cougar’s zone.  Four minutes into the period, Lakeville’s offense scored.  The Cougars’ Cade Ahrenhotz beat the Huskies’ defense cutting into the top of the slot and beating Owatonna’s goalie Preston Meier for the unassisted score.  Lakeville led 1-0.

After giving up the opening goal, Owatonna came back to pressure South in the Lakeville zone.  A Cougar penalty helped.  But the Huskies could not score.  South continued to launch rushes on the Owatonna net.  With six minutes minutes left in the period, Owatonna setup in the Cougars zone.  The Huskies Dominic Valento came up with the puck deep along the left boards and fed Zach Kubicek at the left crease.  Kubicek’s top shelf shot went beat Cougar goalie Michael Peterson for the tying goal.  Valento got the assist.  The 1-1 tie lasted less than a minute.

The South forwards beat the Owatonna defense and converged on a rebounding puck in front of goalie Meier.  Meier battled two South forwards for the puck at the top of the crease and the puck slid through his pads into the crease.  The Cougars’ Hogan Ordal reached around Meier and rapped the puck into the net to put South up 2-1.  Twenty seconds after Lakeville scored to take the lead, Owatonna struck back to tie the game.  This time, Valento along the left boards hit Ashton Hoffman breaking at the left crease with a pass. Hoffman put the puck in the net.  Valento got the assist.  The first period ended in a 2-2 tie.  Owatonna had to survive a minute 5-on-3 penalty kill in the last two minutes.  The Huskies Owen Baumgartner put on a show controlling the puck while covering the full length of the ice to eat up most of the 5-on-3 penalty time.  The shots on goal in the first period were even 8-8.

The second period opened with both teams moving the puck fast.  South drew a hooking penalty early in the period.  Fifteen seconds into the power play, Owatonna set up in the Cougar zone, but the Huskie defense was lax at the Cougar blue line.  The Cougars’ Ordal intercepted the puck in the neutral zone and hit Logan Rasmussen with a pass breaking in neutral ice.  Rasmussen beat the Owatonna defense for a solo shot on the net.  He scored the shorthanded goal put the Cougars up 3-2.  Ordal got the assist. 

Thirty seconds after taking the lead, the Cougars drew a second minor penalty for tripping creating a 5-on-3 power play for the Huskies.  A minute later, Owatonna struck back to tie the game 3-3.  Dominic Valento got the power play goal to tie the game; Wyatt Oldefendt and Owen Baumgartner got the assists.  Two minutes later, Baumgartner pounced on a loose puck in the slot in front of the Cougars net.  His shot caromed off of South's goalie Michael Pederson bouncing over his shoulder into the net.  Owatonna led 4-3.  Baumgartner's goal was scored unassisted.

Owatonna had to kill a penalty halfway through the second period, but gave up a goal 20 seconds after the penalty kill.  This time the Cougars' Cam Boche scored with Ahrenhoz getting the assist.  That tied the game with four minutes to play in the second period.  The winning goal was scored with less than a minute to go in the second period.

The Cougars John Benolkin came up with the puck behind the Huskies' net and fed Rasmussen in the slot.  Rasmussen's shot beat the goalie to put South up 5-4 as the second period ended. The third period was a standoff with both teams having their chances.  Lakeville South's Boche scored unassisted picking up a loose puck off the right boards and shooting from the slot to get the insurance goal halfway through  the final period.  Lakeville won 6-4. 

Lakeville South beats White Bear Lake 4-2

The Sunday morning game started slow.  In the first minutes, a rush by South came close to a score but came up “one pass short”.  Often a peewee team has to learn to go to the open player on rushes with a player advantage.  In this case, two Cougar forwards hit the Bear blue line with a single defense back.  The Cougar puck carrier drew the solo defender towards him and made a nice pass to the other forward breaking at the left faceoff dot.  The passer broke for the weak side (open net) as the Wildcat goalie moved left following the puck.  The Cougar new puck carrier just shot the puck into the goalie instead of hitting the breaking forward on the weak side for the easy goal.  The South forwards failed to score coming up “one pass short”.

Two minutes later the Cougars did score.  Lakeville South defense man Griffin Ludtke beat the Bears on a rush through neutral ice and fired from the right White Bear Lake blue line.  His shot beat the Bears goalie just inside the right pipe to put the South up 1-0.  It was an unassisted score.  White Bear Lake drew two successive penalties after that goal and killed them both.  Bear defense man Tyler Kotzmacher made some nice clearing passes on the penalty kill.  South’s power play struggled to sustain puck control in the Bears’ zone.  The first period ended with the Cougars leading 1-0 on the Ames Arena’s new scoreboard and 11-4 in shots on goal. 

A late South penalty at the end of the opening period put White Bear Lake on a short power play at the opening of the second period.  The Bears did not score a power play goal but scored seconds after the power play ended.  The Bears’ Tyler Mckenzie got the goal; Kotzmacher got the assist.  With the game tied 1-1, the South forwards slowed.  The Bears were checking them off the puck and keeping the Cougars’ attack from getting the good shot.  A White Bear Lake tripping penalty provided South with the opportunity to regain the lead.  A hard shot from the high slot in front of the White Bear Lake goal resulted in the puck rebounding into the lower slot area in front of the White Bear Lake net.  The Cougars’ Cam Boche reached the for the puck and banged it towards the net.  The backhand shot slid along the ice just catching the inside of the right pipe for the score.  Connor Mahony got the assist.  At this point, the Mahony-Ahrenholz-Cam Boche line went into high gear. 

Thirty seconds after scoring to take a 2-1 lead, the Cougars drew a penalty setting up a White Bear Lake power play goal.  The Bears established puck control in the South zone and off a shot crashed the net creating a melee that resulted in Tanner Domschot scoring.  Mckenzie got the assist.  The game was tied 2-2.  The tie lasted two minutes.  This time South scored off the rush by the “59ers” line.  Connor Mahony beat the defense cutting across the right face off circle and charged the Bears’ net.  Instead of shooting, Mahony hit Cade Ahrenholz at the top of the crease.  Ahrenholz fired the puck past a diving Jackson Kohnen for the winning score.  Mahony got the assist.  Ahrenholz would later score the insurance goal in the third period to end the scoring 4-2.