Cambridge-Isanti 5 Pine City 1
The Pine City Area Dragons faced off against their new rivals the Cambridge-Isanti Bluejackets. The Bluejackets came to play with revenge on their mind after the Dragons ended their season in the Section 5A quarterfinals last year. The Bluejackets came out firing in the first period and Seth Terhell scored just three minutes into the opening period. The game went into the first intermission with the Bluejackets up one.
Pine City came out a lot stronger in the second period with Gavin Broz netting a long distance power play goal early in the second period and it looked like the Dragons were going to take back over the game. But just four minutes later Will O'Donovan was taken down in front of the net on a controversial penalty shot call that he capitalized on and gave the game right back to Cambridge-Isanti.
The Bluejackets took over from there and scored three third period goals to finish up a 5-1 victory over Pine City.
Little Falls 6 Pine City 3
The #7 ranked Little Falls Flyers came to visit the Pine City Civic Center on Thursday night. The Flyers are newcomers to Section 5A this year after winning Section 6A last year and going all the way to a section semifinal. This game turned out to be much of the same for the Pine City Area Dragons as penalties continue to keep this team out of the win column.
Little Falls dominated the first period scoring three goals and taking a commanding three goal lead. Pine City found themselves in the penalty box three times in that first period. And while Little Falls only scored on one of those power plays the Dragons struggled to get any offensive momentum going playing down a man. In between periods coach Seth Sauter said, "The game is not over, three goals is nothing we definitely aren't going to hang our heads and give up"
Credit to the Pine City Dragons as they mirrored what their coach had said and the second period looked like Pine City was going to come back and play spoiler against the top seed Little Falls. Jimmy Lindblom and McCoy Leger scored back to back goals early in the second period and all of a sudden it was a one goal game with a lot of hockey left to play. That is where the game got out of control and Pine City could not keep their composure and let penalties get the best of them. The Dragons had seven penalties in the second period in a game that got very physical and saw very little five on five hockey. Little Falls struggled to stay out of the penalty box too as they saw five penalties in the second period. Little Falls added a late second period goal on a power play to give them a 4-2 advantage heading into the final intermission.
The Flyers leading scorer Matt Filippi who came into this game with 21 points in just six games was largely held in check through the first 34 minutes of hockey, but Pine City could not contain him in the third period as he was able to find the back of the net twice for the Flyers. Mason Rydberg scored late for Pine City to wrap up a 6-3 loss.
This game saw 65 minutes of penalties with 49 of those coming from the home team. Coach Seth Sauter mentioned multiple times in interviews over the last week that that is something the team is looking to clean up and try to keep their composure to push forward this season. The Dragons can walk away from that game Thursday night knowing that in 5-on-5 hockey they can skate with one of the best teams in the state. They were largely competitive with the Flyers in the second period when the teams were not on the penalty kill.
Pine City is now 1-4 on the season and they travel on Friday night to take on the Princeton Tigers.
Photo Credit Four Seasons Photography
