Celly Opens with a pair of 5-4 games

Edina, MN - The Celly League opened play on its third season Tuesday night from spacious Braemar Arena.  Two games were on the schedule with Tradition Mortgage facing off against the two-time defending Dangle Cup champion Pellicci Ace Hardware.  The second game featured Lake Cowboy and Remax Advantage Plus.  A fifth team was added to the popular summer league that features the Division I college women’s hockey players from the state of Minnesota and beyond.  The MNHockey.Tv team was idle and will begin play next Thursday.  

All games stream live at MNHockey.Tv 

Pellici Ace Hardware 5 - Tradition Mortgage 4

Box Score        Replay        Condensed Game    

Wasting little time in scoring the season’s first goal, Penn State’s Maddie Christian lit the lamp less than a minute into the first half.  The former Elk River/Zimmerman Elk scored off a feed from behind the net by Yale’s Suzy Higuchi.  Taking advantage of the Ace defensive zone coverage Higuchi drew a crowd and feathered a pass to the on-coming Christian who blasted the puck past Ace goaltender Lauren Larson (Sacred Heart).  

The game tightened up as Tradition rookie goalie Ashyln Hazlett (Bemidji State) lived up to her high school prowess at Minnetonka keeping a surging Ace offensive surge at bay saving the first 12 shots she faced.  None were better than three straight shots including a point-blank look by Ace Hardware’s Kendall Hassler (Minnesota State Mankato). 

Brown’s Avery Lian eventually solved the sterling play of Hazzlet with 1:52 left in the first half.  The play started with Makayla Moran (Minnesota State Mankato) controlling the puck high in the zone.  As she edged to her right, Moran was hooked and falling down yet somehow fed the puck from right to left across the slot to the waiting Lian who deposited a laser past Hazzlet’s glove hand to tie the score at a goal apiece.  Hazzlet finished her evening in goal with 15 first half saves while Larson turned aside 13 Tradition Mortgage shots in the first half.  

The game exploded in the second half with 7 goals and the complexion of the game changed. Ace took a 2-1 lead at the 6-minute mark of the second half on some hard work down low by Hassler, Campbell Heger (Sacred Heart) and Avelyn Mikkelson (Assumption).  The puck worked its way up to the left blue line as Sydney Putrah (Darmouth) waited and fired a puck that was redirected by Heger.  The original stop was made by Hailey Hanson (Minnesota State Mankato) yet it was her incoming teammate Moran who buried the puck for the 2-1 lead.    

Ace went up by a score of 3-1 on a goal by Moran just about 3-minutes later.   The teams exchanged goals in the explosive second half with Christian potting her second of the game to pull her Tradition team within one at 3-2.  Ace had none of that and went to work with Hassler scoring to make it 4-2, giving her team the two-goal lead again.  

Addison Andre (Franklin Pierce) followed up a shot from the slot and buried her own rebound in an outstanding effort to pull Tradition within a goal at 4-3.  Abby Broz (Franklin Pierce) leveled the score at 4 with a short side goal that beat Larson. 

With 5 minutes left in the second half, Avery Lian scored to pull her Ace team back in front by one at 5-4.  Heger and Lily Hunst (Assumption) had assists on the goal. Tradition killed off a late penalty and mounted a strong finish but Larson made two of her best saves of the game that totaled 19.  

Lake Cowboy 5 - Remax Advantage Plus 4

Box Score        Replay        Condensed Game        

Game two of the opening evening of action took on the same complexion as game one, a defensive tussle to start.  After 17 minutes of scoreless high-tempo play, Abby Garvin beat Layla Hemp (Minnesota) after she took a turn over, dusted the puck off and sent a shot past the low stick side from the slot for the 1-0 lead.   

Lake Cowboy pushed back with a pair of goals later in the first half. The first was scored by Josie Linn (University of New Hampshire) with Justina Valentini (Assumption) earning the assist.  Linn protected the puck as she crossed the blueline from left to right and was able to cut back against the two defenders and get a forehand shot past Remax goalie Kaitlin Groess (Bemidji State) just 3-minutes after Garvin’s tally. 

Bella Fanaie (Minnesota) scored with 2:58 remaining in the first half on some slick stick work as she was essentially on a 2-on-5 rush across the line as her team was changing.  Fanaie’s quick inside-out hands drew the defense to the middle and Fanaie took advantage of that as she accelerated to the open space.  The space left her a gap to take the puck to the net and eventually shoved the puck through the 5-hole of Groess.   

Remax evened the score at 2 about 3-minutes in the second half on a goal by Lily Pachl (Cornell).  The unassisted effort was a terrific show of edge work as she sliced through the heart of the defensive zone coverage in the slot and opened up from the left dot to fire a shot past Sedona Blair (University of New Hampshire).  

Lake Cowboy nudged ahead by a goal and it was Elle Zakrajsheck (UMD) who was the benefactor of a great zone excite that was started by Katelyn Roberts (Penn State) as Lake Cowboy entered the zone, Linn dropped it off for the oncoming Zakrajsheck who worked her way toward a great look at the net and beat goalie Zoe Rimstad (Lindenwood) 11 minutes into the half.  

Fanaie took another great feed in transition from Lake Cowgirl blueline as Taylor Porthan (UConn) and Valentini connected for Fanaie’s second of the game, another terrific danglefest by Fanaie.  

Roberts scores a lot in this league and the 3-year veteran scored a goal of own for a 2-point night.  Roberts powered her way in on goal and gave her team the 3-goal cushion at 5-2.  That goal would stand-up as the game-winner as Remax bounced back with a pair of six-on-five goals to make it a 5-4 game with 14.8 seconds to go.  The first goal was scored by Delaney Fleming (Cornell) assisted by Sawyer Fleming (Princeton) with 45 seconds left in the game.  Then it was Sawer Fleming from Delaney Fleming setting up an exciting finish.  The game was fought off by Lake Cowgirl to earn the hard fought and entertaining 5-4 win.