The Raider girls have been playing great and consistent hockey since the middle of December, winning six in a row including three shutouts in that span. Their sixth win came at home on Jan. 3 against St. Paul/Two Rivers (SPTR). The Raiders controlled that game for most of the night even though it finished 4-2. Two days later they traveled to Woodbury and played a great bookend of two periods, but a three-goal second sealed the 3-0 loss.
At home against the Riveters, Hastings had control of the game all night causing a lot of frustration for their opponents, especially in the first period where SPTR only managed to take five shots on goal. Add the first goal of the game coming at the 6:00 minute mark when Madyn Hanson and Ava Hoffman found Maddy Schuster for the goal, and Hastings started to get under the Riveter’s skin.
SPTR tied the game on the power play with less than a minute remaining in the second to make the game look closer than it was. By the end of the second period, Hastings led the shots-on-goal tally 25-14 which tends to wear on the goalie on the losing end of that deal, and it did.
At 13:16 into the third, Autumn Burt buried a rebound from Brooke Townsend and Haley Siebenaler to give Hastings the lead for good. Two minutes later, Jade Schauer scored the insurance goal on a power play. Schauer was assisted by Hanson and Schuster.
The Riveters fought hard in the third scoring on the powerplay less than a minute after Schauer’s goal to make it 3-2 with less than a minute left, but Schauer made a great play to score the empty net goal with six seconds left in the game to give the Raiders a 4-2 win.
Both teams’ powerplays were effective that night with SPTR scoring on two of their three skater advantages. Hastings scored one of their two skater advantages. Victoria Steinke earned the win by stopping 22-of-24 shots for a .917 goals-against average.
Hastings looked like a different team on the ice as if the success at the Burnsville tournament gave them a big confidence boost. They were playing aggressively but within their scheme and it looked as though all of what Head Coach Jim Joseph had been teaching them the last season and a half suddenly clicked. They had been playing well up to this point, but this game just felt and looked different in a great way.
The game at Woodbury on Jan. 5 was chaos, 13 penalties were called for a total of 26 minutes. The penalties were split with the exception Hastings had the extra penalty. Eight of the penalties occurred in the second period with Hastings whistled for five of the eight. The issue there is the extra stress it puts on the Raiders for essentially 10 minutes of the total 17 played in a period. That is a difficult position to put anyone in, and the Royals capitalized, scoring twice with the skater advantage. The second powerplay goal was scored 3-on-5.
The biggest issue was Woodbury shut down the Raider offense allowing only eight total Hastings shots on goal. On the other end, Steinke faced 42 shots stopping 39 for a .929 save percentage. With that much disparity between the shots on goal, it is very difficult to pull out a win.
Saturday, some of the girls stopped out to see the boy’s scrimmage at United Heroes League and they expressed that they thought they played well for the first and third periods against Woodbury on the defensive end and that Steinke played incredibly, they just couldn’t get things done on the offensive end and they felt they messed up the second by not playing their style of hockey. The self-assessment was interesting to hear, and they were looking at the positives of the game. No excuses, having a short memory, and a positive attitude is a great way to keep the season on track.
They will host three straight games in the next week and some change. On Jan. 9 they host Simley, on Jan. 13 Blaine comes to town for a 5:00 p.m. game and then on Jan. 16 they host North/Tartan for a 7:00 p.m. faceoff.