by Scott DCamp
Sports Editor

Thief River Falls battled but came up short in a 2-1 Section 8A boys hockey semifinal loss to East Grand Forks Saturday at the Ralph Engelstad Arena.

“We played them twice before. They outplayed us and outworked us in both games,” said Thief River Falls Head Coach Tim Bergland. “Going into the game, I thought we were ready. We had a good opening half of the first period. We were much more aggressive, up on the play better, and supporting the puck better.”

Bergland felt his team had two or three good chances to score in the opening period, but they weren’t able to capitalize and put a puck in the net. With 3:58 left to play in the first period, East Grand Forks’ Logan Spencer scored to make it 1-0 in favor of the Green Wave. “

We hadn’t had a lead on them this year,” Bergland said. “It would have been nice to play with a lead on them.”

Bergland felt like his team got a little more passive in the second period as East Grand Forks established its forecheck. The Green Wave took a 2-0 lead on a goal by Carson Schlenk with 11 minutes left to play in the second period.

The Prowlers picked up the pace in the third period and finally found the net on a Tucker Skime goal with 1:10 left to play. The Prowlers worked the puck into the East Grand Forks zone late in the third period but they weren’t able to get any decent shots off before the final buzzer.

“They are a very good hockey team,” Bergland said of East Grand Forks. “Overall, our team played very hard. It’s always tough to finish those games and lose. We worked hard, we just didn’t finish our opportunities.

“Noah Rupprecht played another solid game for us in the net. Hats off to all the seniors.”

Scoring                      1   2  3  T
Thief River Falls…..0  0  1   1
East Grand Forks… 1  1  0   2
First period – EGF, Logan Spencer (Jaksen Panzer, Mason Poolman) 13:02.
Second period – EGF, Carson Schlenk (Jaksen Panzer, Logan Spencer) 6:00.
Third period – TRF, Tucker Skime (Brockston Masseth, #10 Blake Biermaier) 15:50.
Shots – TRF 2-4-6 – 12; EGF 12-14-13 – 39.
Power plays – TRF 0/2; EGF 0/1.
Penalties – TRF 1 (2 minutes); EGF 2 (4 minutes).
Goalie saves – TRF, Noah Rupprecht 37; EGF, Austin Cooley 11.