Tradition Tops TRIA - Lake Cowgirl picks up steam down the stretch

Bloomington, MN - The Summer Celly League closed out its seasonal play from the Bloomington Ice Garden with the remaining three regular season games to be played at Braemar Arena.  Lake Cowgirl won a steady 5-2 game over Ace Hardware.  Tradition Mortgage stopped the four game winning streak of TRIA by handing them their first loss in a 5-1 victory. 

Lake Cowgirl 5  Ace Hardware 2

Lake Cowgirl cruised to a 5-2 win over Ace Hardware to leap-frog Ace for a tie of second place with Tradition Mortgage in the Summer Celly League.  The opening game was  a rematch of an opening night tilly, between the two teams, with Lake Cowgirl avenging a 7-1 thrashing at the hands of Ace Hardware on July 11th. 

Lake Cowgirl tallied the game’s first two goals and just a few minutes into the contest Suzy Higuchi scored, followed by a tally from Peyton Hemp. Ace Hardware cut the deficit in half later in the first on a goal by Brittyn Fleming who added to her league leading goal total with 6.  

A pair of Lake Cowgirl allowed Lake Cowgirl to pull ahead.  Allie Thunstrom increased the lead to 3-1 by picking up a loose puck at center and racing in on goal for a breakaway tally. Peyton Hemp tallied her second goal of the contest with a beautiful slap shot blast past Ace Hardware goalie Lucy Morgan. 

The skating speed, balance and angles of Thunstrom, who gels well with Hemp, was evident when the two were on the ice.  Hemp provides great vision, compete, and skill to go along with the game-breaking speed of Thunstrom.  

“Thunstrom, I am honestly in awe of her,” said Hemp. “She is the fastest player I have ever seen in my life.  She has to be the fastest female player.  So it’s nice just to be able to kind of give her the puck and she can just go down and get the puck to the net.” 

Despite outshooting Lake Cowgirl 18-14 in the first half, Ace found themselves with a 4-1 deficit going into the second half. Carly Greene and Alexandra Pellicci dueled in goal, stopping several grade A chances.  A pair of goals were exchanged late in the game first by Lake Cowgirl’s Katelyn Roberts raced down the right wing and slid one five-hole on Green and Michaela Boyle potted her second of the season for Ace Hardware.  Roberts had a goal and an assist and continues on her heater in the Celly League as she now leads the league with 9 points (5g-4). 

Hemp feels as though her team is moving in the right direction with the playoffs on the horizon after their tough start to the season in game one against Ace.  “It was definitely a rough start there in the beginning but I feel like everyone was just kind of getting their feet under them.  People were rusty and hadn’t played in a while so now I think we are kind of getting a rhythm, it’s been really fun,” Hemp said.  

Lake Cowgirls closes out their regular season schedule with a game against Pull Tab Sports on Friday from Braemar Arena.  

Tradition Mortgage 5  TRIA 1 

Tradition Mortgage handed TRIA their first loss of the Celly League season by earning a 5-1 victory.  Three first half goals by Tradition Mortgage allowed them to seize control of the game as Abby Boreen scored her first of two on the game, Catie Skaja, and Isa Goettl also scored her first of two on the game.  Together the three unanswered goals and the 3-0 first half lead by Tradition proved to be too much for TRIA to overcome.

TRIA would not go away as Maddy Helmstetter scored to cut the deficit to 3-1. Tradition had a great push in the game and responded with goals by Boreen and Goettl’s second of the game. The five goals allowed by TRIA marked the most they have allowed in a game this year and was one more than what they allowed total in their first four games.  

The logjam in the standings is legit with TRIA leading at 8 points and one game remaining.  Tradition Mortgage and Lake Cowgirl are just two off the lead with six points each and both have one game remaining over the weekend.  It will be a fun weekend at Braemar Arena.  Tradition Mortgage faces off against Pull Tab Sports on Sunday and TRIA takes on ACE Hardware on Saturday from Braemar Arena.