Roseville Hockey Girls –> State

Posted: February 18, 2012 by Steve in Uncategorized

WOW

That was an unbelievable hockey game! Roseville won 4-1 (with an empty netter) over Hill Murray in a game dominated by Hill Murray. Right from the start Hill Murray dominated play. It was like a power play by Hill Murray for much of the game (when it was 5 on 5). Pucks were bouncing all around the Roseville crease with Erica Allen frequently diving on loose pucks.

Part way through the first period, Roseville’s Erica Bjorkman got free on a breakaway and put it through the Hill Murray’s goalie’s legs. Shortly after that, Roseville was called for a penalty. Early in the power play, Kate Flug poked the puck away from a Hill Murray defender at the blue line. She proceeded to skate down on a breakaway and fake out the goalie for an easy score. After one period, it was Roseville 2, Hill Murray 0.

The second period seemed extremely long for the Roseville fans, and probably the players as well. Hill Murray applied continuous pressure, except for when they had committed a penalty. Even then, Roseville didn’t get much for chances. The iced the puck over and over and struggled just to get it out of their zone. Hannah Brandt finally broke through midway through the period on a backhand of a bouncing puck. From that point on, it seemed that Roseville just hung on for dear life, just waiting for this endless period to end.

When both teams came out for the third period, it appeared that the tide had turned and Roseville had weathered the storm. They weren’t always just trying to clear the puck, but were trying to generate some offense with lead passes. Hill Murray still had the majority of the good chances, but Roseville stared to get some chances of their own. With about 5 minutes to go Hill Murray got a power play. They had lots of good chances to tie the game at that point. After getting through that, Kate Flug got a pass behind the Hill Murray defense, and put a final nail in their coffin. Leigh Stechlien scored a bounced off the boards empty netter to finish of the scoring.

In a sense you could say the better team lost. But Roseville played Hill Murray like Muhammad Ali doing rope-a-dope. They kept taking punches from Hill Murray, but didn’t allow a single breakaway. On the other hand they got 3 great breakaways and scored on each one. They also had someone shadow Hannah Brandt the whole game (usually Kate Flug or Hannah Brodt). I have never seen anything like it. I think it was the perfect strategy. They weren’t going to let Brandt beat them, and she didn’t.

In the end, it was a wonderful game that I would have loved no matter how it turned out.

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