By Bruce Karnick

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The fall sports season has not yet come to completion and the Raider ladies have taken to the ice on the Mcgree rink not once, but twice to kick off the winter sports season.

Game one for Hastings brought Rochester Mayo to town on Thursday. Hastings controlled the game from the start, they established the pace, and the puck rarely entered their own zone for much of the night. At 6:44 in the first, Jade Schauer buried the feed out front from Kiki Radant to score the first Raider goal of the season.

Not quite two minutes later, with Mayo on the power play, Makayla Berquist scored the second goal of the season, this one shorthanded, with a great pass from Emily Thuet. Kylie Gruden and Madelyn Schuster were not going to be left out of the point acquisition for the night, Gruden hit lace after Berquist hit Schuster and Schuster completed the connection to Gruden for the goal at 15:17 into the period. After 17 minutes, Hastings had the lead 3-0.

The second period was much less active for the goalies with a lot of back and forth between the teams. Hastings kept their 3-0 lead heading into the third.

Maddie Daley kept the distribution of player points going in the game, Lauren Skov to Radant to Daly for the goal, extending the Raider lead 4-0.

Rochester scored a power play goal at the 7:10 mark of the third after Lauren Hubbart went to the penalty box for hooking.

At 11:22 in the third, Skov added another individual point for the season scoring her first goal, a goal that was assisted by Radant and Schauer.

Rochester was called for an elbowing penalty, and they kept Hastings at bay for a minute and a half until Cianna Bernard put the icing on the cake. Gruden to Berquist to Bernard and Hastings extended the lead 6-1 with 1:29 left to go.

That ended up being the final, Hastings – 6, Rochester Mayo – 1. Shots on goal Hastings – 50, Rochester – 9, Hastings was 1 for 3 on power plays and Rochester was 1 for 4. Hastings had eight minutes on four penalties and Mayo six minutes on three penalties.

On Saturday, Red Wing made the trip upstream to visit Hastings in what looked like it would be an even game with the teams playing 17 minutes with no goals.

That changed quickly in the second period. Bernard forced a turnover and scored unassisted at the 2:06 mark. Nine seconds later, Madyn Hanson feed Kyra Erickson for goal number two and just like that, Hastings had the 2-0 lead.

Berquist logged a point on the next goal assisting Karissa Thompson on her first goal of the season. Radant and Skov assisted Schauer for her second goal on the season and Hastings led 4-0 into the third.

1:28 into the third, Ava Hoffman and Erickson combined on the assist for Daley to get her second goal of the season. At the 9:20 mark Lauren Hubbart got her first goal with the help of Jorja Riches and Thompson.

Hastings won the game 6-0 to improve to 2-0 on the season. 37 shots on goal with 87 for the season, an impressive stat on its own. Proof that the thought process of ‘if you put the puck on net, good things happen”.

Both teams failed to score on the power play, Red Wing had five different advantages and Hastings had one really long one. In the first period, one Red Wing player was sent to the box for checking from behind, a five-minute major, a ten-minute misconduct was tacked on to that call. All five Hastings penalties were two-minute minors.

One of the most impressive stats of the year so far, after the shots they have put on goal, is the number of shots they have faced, a total of 17 shots over two games. That makes the job of the Raider senior goalkeeper Lauren Dubej much easier.

The Raiders host Fergus Falls on Friday, November 19 at 7:30 p.m. then they travel to the HealthEast Sports Center in Woodbury to take on East Ridge on Saturday, also at 7:30 p.m.

A wrap around goal by Makayla Berquist for the second goal of the season assisted by Emily Thuet. Photo by Bruce Karnick.