Luverne senior Maggie Vanden Hoek fights for control of the puck with New Ulm’s Sam Richter during Friday’s season-opening girls hockey game at the Blue Mound Ice Arena. The Eagles scored 10 unanswered goals to best the Cardinals 10-1.
By John Rittenhouse
The Luverne girls’ hockey team stumbled to an 0-2 start to the 2002-03 season by dropping a pair of games since last Friday.
The Cardinals scored six seconds into their home opener against New Ulm to take an early lead before falling by nine goals in the end.
LHS skated to a draw with Mankato East for two periods Tuesday in Mankato. The hosts, however, prevailed by three in the end.
Luverne attempts to break into the win column tonight when it hosts Marshall. The Cards play a road game in Fairmont Tuesday.
ME 4, Luverne 1
The Cardinals played better in their second game of the season even though the final result was the same.
Luverne battled Mankato East to a draw at one through two periods during Tuesday’s tilt in Mankato before succumbing to a three-goal surge in the third period by the hosts.
"Luverne just wasn’t clicking," said Cardinal coach Dave Siebenahler. "We couldn’t find our game."
The teams exchanged goals in the first period.
East opened the scoring to take an early lead, but the Cards knotted the score at one at the 9:02 mark of the stanza.
Taylor Nelson netted Luverne’s counter. Stephanie Morgan received an assist for the tally.
Neither team could find the net in the second period, but that changed in the final 15 minutes of play.
ME scored one power-play goal and two even-strength counters during a three-goal period that settled the issue.
Cardinal goalie Alyssa Wieneke displayed some dramatic improvement in her second varsity start.
After facing 32 shots and allowing 10 goals in Friday’s opener, Wieneke stopped 42 of 46 shots in Mankato.
NU 10, Luverne 1
A promising start turned into a disastrous finish when the Cardinals opened the 2002-03 season against New Ulm at the Blue Mound Ice Arena Friday.
It looked like LHS might be on its way to a win when the Cardinals scored their first goal of the season six seconds into the contest.
The mood, however, changed quickly as the Eagles scored four times in a 2:12 span as the opening period progressed and ended up scoring 10 unanswered counters while coasting to a nine-goal victory.
Led by Tiffany Hoffman, Jocelyn Janni and Amber Reinhart, New Ulm dominated play offensively while doubling (32-16) Luverne’s output in shots on goal.
Six different Eagles scored goals in the game, led by Hoffman’s hat trick. Jannie and Reinhart added two goals each.
Luverne’s brightest moment came at the start of the game. The Cardinals won the opening face off, and the puck ended up on the stick of sophomore wing Natalie Domagala. Domagala skated into the New Ulm zone and buried the puck into the net for a 1-0 lead at the 14:54 mark of the opening period.
The rest of the period belonged to New Ulm.
Janni ignited a string of four goals in a span of 2:12 when she tied the game at one with 13:29 remaining in the period.
Danielle Fischer and Ashley Dietz scored for New Ulm before Janni struck again to make it a 4-1 game with 11:17 remaining in the first stanza.
When Reinhart scored her first goal with 3:17 left in the first period, the Eagles had a commanding 5-1 advantage.
Hoffman put the game away by scoring twice in the second period (at 8:41 and 5:47) before opening a three-goal third period with a counter at 9:17.
Liz Bode and Reinhart capped the scoring with tallies with 5:40 and 1:44 remaining respectively.
Making her first varsity start as goalie, Luverne’s Alyssa Wieneke stopped 22 of 32 shots. After allowing an early goal to Domagala, New Ulm’s Jenny Neveln ended the game by making 15 consecutive saves.