The Raider girl’s hockey team had two games last week, first against Simley where they lost 3-1 on Jan. 9, then a battle of goalies against Blaine on Jan 13, where the Raiders took the lead with less than 2:30 left in the game to claim the 1-0 victory.
The Spartans came to town for the week’s first game and scored three goals in the second to win 3-1. The lone Raider goal came from Madyn Hanson at 9:16 in the first period to put Hastings up 1-0. The Raiders took the lead into the first intermission and held on to it until 3:25 into the second. That is when Simley took control of the game. All three Spartan goals were scored in just over three minutes.
Simley finished the game with 33 shots on goal to Hastings’ 27. There were four penalties called on Hastings for eight minutes and Simley had 17 minutes on three infractions including a five-minute major with a 10-minute game misconduct. Victoria Steinke faced 27 shots, stopping 24 for a .889 save percentage.
Heading into the game against Blaine, the expectation was the game was going to be a battle of goalies. Both teams are equally balanced on the offensive and defensive sides of the rink. The Bengals goalie, Mandy Larson has a .952 save percentage on the season with the Raiders Steinke sitting at .926. Conversely, Steinke had four shutouts compared to Larson’s one.
The game was controlled by the Bengals for much of the first period and Steinke dominated in the net stopping 16 shots while the Raiders were only able to get five shots on Larson. Olyvia Erickson had the best chance of the period to score for the Raiders, a perfectly set-up breakaway. Erickson skated in and made a great shot, but Larson made an even better save to rob Erickson of the game’s first goal.
Hastings made a few adjustments and kept the second period even at eight shots per team, and yet no goals were scored. The goalies continued to make save after save, many in spectacular fashion to keep the game tied. In the third period, Hastings took control of the game, outshooting the Bengals 17-12. The game was tied until 14:33 into the third when Erickson was not going to be denied again. Lauren Muhl and Grace Petrich connected with Erickson on the game’s only goal to give the Raiders the lead with less than 2:30 to play.
There were only three total penalties called in the game, one on Blaine and two on Hastings with both teams killing off six minutes worth of penalties. In the shutout win, Steinke faced 36 shots and Larson faced 30.
With the win, Hastings moved to 11-8 overall for the season and 1-4 in the conference. According to the Hockey Hub rankings, Steinke is the 11th-ranked goalie with 11 wins, she is 31st in goals against average with a 1.98 GAA and she is 25th in save percentage with a .926. None of the Raiders skaters have cracked the top 100 for the rankings, but nine Raiders have 10 or more total points, a testament to the team first approach to scoring. Addie Seleski leads with 18 total points including her team-leading 12 assists. Lauren Muhl leads the team in goals with eight and is in the top 10 on the team for assists. All of the Raider skaters that have more than 50 percent of the games played have tallied at least one point.
Hastings has just six games left in the regular season, and they currently sit in sixth place in the section at 2-1 for section games. If the season ended now, they would likely face Rosemount based on the section rankings, but that will change when the coaches get together to vote on the section rankings.
Next week, Hastings will travel to South St. Paul on Jan. 19 and then to Simley on Jan. 23. Both of those games will be at 7:00 p.m. They travel to Hill-Murray on Jan. 27 for a 2:00 p.m. matinee game before returning home for their final home game of the season against Farmington on Jan. 30 at 7:00 p.m.