Celly League Opens League Play

Bloomington, MN - The Summer Celly League launched its first season from the Bloomington Ice Garden in Bloomington, MN on Tuesday night with two games on the scheule.  A collection of Minnesota’s top collegiate and professional women’s hockey players make up the league of five teams.  BrainJuice defeated Tradition Mortgage 4-1 and Ace Hardware took down Lake Cowgirl victory by a score of 7-1.  

BrainJuice 4  Tradition Mortgage 1

BrainJuice which will be known as Tria the rest of the way this season scored 3 straight goals to open the scoring in the first half on the strength of goals from Paetyn Levis, Ava Lindsay and Audrey Wethington pinning Tradition Mortgage to the mat.  Tradition Mortgage refused to go down easily and answered on a goal by Lauren Zawoyski.  

Tradition pushed with big pressure throughout the half as they fired 18 shots on Tria goalie Amanda Leveille, the two time Isobel Cup champion in the NWHL and three national collegiate championship winner.  The duo of Skyler Vetter and Hailey Hanson combined for a 29 save effort in the win. 

Ace Hardware 7  Lake Cowgirl 1

The score did not indicate how this game played out, especially through 28 minutes. A hotly contested game that was scoreless for nearly 28 minutes in the first half, was blown open by a 3-goal outburst from Ace Hardware as they dropped the hammer enroute to a 7-1 victory.  

Madison Kaiser had 2 goals and an assist to propel her team to the win. Kaiser noted that the Mankato line of Whitney Tuttle, Taylor Otremba, and Madison Mashuga were catalysts in getting her team rolling. “I think that the Mankato line line got us rolling,” Kaiser said.  “They have pretty good chemistry.  I think as we started getting comfortable with each other, started talking just about how their school was, we got more comfortable and started playing better.”

Liz Schepers opened the scoring at the 28 minute mark of the first half and her team produced two more goals in a span of 1:53 as Ella Knewtson and Michaela Boyle rounded out the stunning turn of events.  

Lake Cowgirl’s Katelyn Roberts spoiled what would have been a combined shutout for Ace goaltenders Carly Greene and Lucy Morgan.  Roberts netted a goal off the right site of the net with :07 left in the game.  Greene and Morgan turned aside 25 shots for the win. 

“It was really fun seeing girls I haven’t seen play since high school,” Kaiser said after the game.  “It was fun seeing all the college girls get together.  “A lot of these girls I haven’t seen since high school.  I have been hearing about them and reading about them, seeing them on social media, it was good to finally see them in person and playing”

Image courtesy of Sam Silver