BEMIDJI - The Bemidji High School girls hockey team couldn’t get much of anything going Tuesday night, as Warroad shut them out 5-0 at the Bemidji Community Arena.
“We had a good team that we were up against,” BHS assistant coach Casey Reierson said. “They took advantage of the opportunities we gave them, and we could never come back from it.”
Danika Huerd, a Warroad junior who played youth hockey in Bemidji, opened the scoring for the Warriors (4-2) just under three minutes into the game.
By the end of the first frame, Warroad extended its lead to 2-0 on a goal from Tiffany Foster.
The Warriors matched its first period effort in the second, but Bemidji goalie Leighton Rockensock didn’t have a chance at either of them.
For the first, the Jacks (1-5) were two skaters short after two tripping calls. Katie Johnston easily one-timed a Jen Phillips pass in after a tic-tac-toe Warriors passing play with the 5-on-3 power play.
Bemidji was able to kill the second penalty, but couldn’t hold Warroad off until the end of the period, as Sara Baumann rocketed one just under the crossbar to make it 4-0.
“Warroad had some really good shooters, they shot the puck hard,” Reierson said. “They put it up top and it was just good shooting by them.”
The Jacks looked better in the third period, managing a game-high seven shots on goal.
But they couldn’t get anything past Warrior goalie Emma Brunelle, who posted a 16-save shutout.
Warroad put the final stamp on the win with just 15 seconds left, when freshman Joslynn Olson scored the fifth and final goal of the game.
This was the first time the Jacks have been held scoreless this year, and it has them a little concerned, according to Reierson.
“What we’ve been worrying about mostly, and what we’ve kind of been trying to worry about this year, is we need goal scorers,” he said. “We need some people to step up and put the puck in the net.”
And Reierson said he hopes having as good of a goalie as Rockensock in net for practice will help them become better offensively down the road.
“In practice we just need to keep firing it,” he noted.
“We have a good goalie, so in practice it’s the perfect opportunity for our girls to get it past our goalie. They get it past our goalie, they can get it past any goalie in the state.”
Rockensock stopped 36 of 41 Warroad shots on Tuesday.
The Lumberjacks get a two-day Thanksgiving break before the St. Cloud tournament on Friday.
Warroad 5, Bemidji 0
WHS 2 2 1 - 5
BHS 0 0 0 - 0
First Period - 1, WHS, Huerd (Unassisted), 2:54; 2, WHS, Foster (Oelkers), 15:35.
Second Period - 3, WHS, Johnston (Phillips, M. Gardner), 11:26; 4, WHS, Bauman (Unassisted), 15:03.
Third Period - 5, Olson (Foster), 16:45.
