By Steve Morris
The Rush City/Pine City boys hockey lost a defensive game to the Mora Mustangs 1-0 on Feb. 7.
The loss wasn’t for lack of preparation, head coach Tim Schlichting said.
“We concentrated on some face off plays this week and implemented a strong-side stretch breakout to open up our zone,” Schlichting said.
The Dragons played without Adam Olson, Frank Hauner, Thomas Pitzen and Nathan Theisen who were all out sick or injured.
Houston Carlson and Cameron Witte stepped in with senior linemate Dan Sebastian. to fill the open positions.
“Their line ended up having three or four really good scoring opportunities including a 2 on 1 and a few point-blank shots. We did an excellent job killing off our six penalties including a 5 on 3 with an outstanding effort by Taylor Gonyea and Haakon Hansen,” Schlichting said.
Terry Kraft had a few scoring opportunities including one in the second where he hustled to a loose puck in the neutral zone and was able to fire a shot that just missed the upper corner.
Mora had a good penalty kill against the Dragons and Pine City was unable to get anything going on the power play.
The Dragons ended up putting two defensemen out to prevent any short-handed goals.
“Unfortunately we were unable to slip one in even when we had a power play for the last few seconds of the game and an extra skater on the ice. The heart and intensity level was there, we just could not capitalize on our chances,” Schlichting said.
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