By Bruce Karnick

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After the 7-1 loss to St. Thomas Academy, the Raider boys took out their frustrations on an unsuspecting Mounds View Team beating them 9-2 at TCO Sports Garden.

The first period, Alex Gelhar scored the first goal with the assist going to Connor Stoffel. Two minutes later, Eddy Peine scored unassisted giving Hastings the 2-0 lead at the first intermission.

One minute into the second period, Stephen Reifenberger scored with the assist going to Luke Savage and Logan DeBettignies. Savage and DeBettignies assisted John Chorlton on the next goal, extending Hastings’ lead 4-0. Mounds View cut the lead in half scoring two goals 16 seconds apart. Reifenberger logged his second goal of the evening, once again assisted by Savage and heading into the third, Hastings had the lead 5-2.

The Raiders were not done, Savage finally found the back of the net on the power play, assisted by Collin Stewart and Luke Chorlton. Brody Larsen scored next, assisted by Blake Vandehoef and John Chorlton. Stoffel got on the board, assisted by Jake Harris and Luke Chorlton. And the final goal of the evening earned Reifenberger the hat trick, a power play goal assisted by Savage and Jack Nicklay. In all, six different Raiders scored and it was clear that puck movement was the focus of the game for Hastings with six of the Raider goals coming with multiple assists.

Hastings went 2-for-3 on the powerplay and were perfect stopping four powerplays. The Raiders had 34 shots on goal and Holden Richardson faced 20 shots, allowing two for a .900 save percent.

The win brought the boys to 5-2-1 on the season, but their 0-2-1 record in the conference has them in sixth place.

The girls played host to South St. Paul on Tuesday where their struggle continued. The Packers gave Hastings plenty of opportunities to score by committing five penalties. Hastings could not convert any of the powerplays into points. South St. Paul on the other hand did convert one of their penalty options. In the third period, the Packers Lily Pachl intercepted a clearing attempt from the Raiders and broke in on goalie Nicole Vander Heyden. In a weird sequence, defender Maddy Daley threw her stick interrupting the shot. The officials stopped play, conferred for a minute and awarded Pachl a penalty shot, she scored giving South St. Paul the 3-0 lead.

“We play good,” said head coach Tim Duggan after the game. “They just have to play a full 51 minutes.”

Duggan talked about the things he is hearing on the bench. The girls come back and talk about their shift, they talk about what they did wrong, what they did right. They are repeating the things the coaches are saying in practice.

“I think we got the right group here. That’s here now for varsity. So, I think it’s the right group to get it done. But you know, they recognize it. They do they recognize it. They recognize when they make a mistake, then they’re like, Oh my God, why are we doing that? We can get away from that. They see it right away. And, you know, that’s good,” Duggan added.

Unfortunately, those things have not translated to the ice, and they certainly have not translated to wins. The girls have dropped the last five in a row and eight of the last nine. The effort from the girls is there, it just seems as though something is out of sync. When they do get rolling, the hope is the floodgates will open, making the rest of the season much more interesting.

Both the boys and girls travel to tournaments during Christmas break, the girls head to Burnsville and the boys to South St. Paul. The next chance to catch the boys is January 4 at home against Anoka at 7:30. The girls will host Owatonna on January 8 at 8:00.