January 12, 2022 at 2:24 p.m.
Girls' hockey: No. 1 Bay Area downs Northern Edge 11-0
Girls' hockey: No. 1 Bay Area downs Northern Edge 11-0
Kristina Kruse and Makayla Spejcher each recorded hat tricks and the Bay Area Ice Bears defeated the Edge 11-0 at the Langlade County Multi-Purpose Building in Antigo.
The Ice Bears, an 11-school co-op from the greater Green Bay Area, moved up to No. 1 in the Wisconsin Prep Hockey poll earlier on Monday night, and controlled the game from start to finish. Bay Area scored four times in the first and five times in the second. The Ice Bears tacked on two more goals in the final minute of the contest.
"They're solid top to bottom," Edge coach Tom Roeser said. "They're fast and we had a little trouble in the neutral zone keeping up with them. They moved the puck really well across. Also, in our D zone, we had some issues covering that near-side post girl. We gave up five goals that way and I think, typically, we take those away. Tonight we were just off."
The Ice Bears wasted little time getting on the board, as Claire Bradford scored 4:02 into the contest on the power play. Stacey Cloute, Josie Bender and Spejcher added goals to make it 4-0 after a period.
Kruse scored all three of her goals in the second period. Cloute and Spejcher also scored as the Ice Bears led 9-0 after two. Spejcher finished her hat trick with 51 seconds remaining in the game and Ella Chilson tacked one more just eight seconds later.
The Ice Bears outshot the Edge 43-10 in the contest. Ellie Stank made 32 saves in defeat.
Despite the lopsided loss, Roeser said there were some plenty of lessons the his team could take from playing the Ice Bears.
"Girls that move the puck that quick in front of the net and body positioning in front and making sure we're seeing all the important areas of the ice, we got pretty exposed at that," he said. "We learned and we got better as the game rolled on and the girls got better the whole game."
The Edge nearly broke up the shutout at the end of the game as Kassidee Linssen knocked in a wraparound attempt by Mackenzie Wissbroecker, but the officials deemed the buzzer sounded prior to the puck crossing the goal line and disallowed the goal.
"It didn't get in before the buzzer, but it was a really nice hustle play by Mackenzie," Roeser said. "We had a couple of nice opportunities. Right at the end of that second period we had a nice one-timer out to the slot on a power play. Our forwards were battling in the corner and Kassidee was right where she needed to be."
The Edge (0-6-0) traveled to Medford (0-7-0) on Thursday in a battle of two teams seeking their first win of the season. That game concluded after deadline for today's edition.
The Edge returns to action Monday night against Northland Pines at the Rhinelander Ice Arena. The Eagles defeated the Edge 5-1 Dec. 7 in Eagle River and Roeser said Monday's game will serve as a nice progress report for his team midway through the season.
"They battle. They're strong and we've got to be more physical and learn to stay out of the box playing teams like that. We have plenty of respect for Pines' skills," he said.
Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].
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