Worthington Squirt B takes 3rd place at district tourney

Redwood Falls — The Worthington Squirt B hockey team rallied to claim third place out of six southwest Minnesota squirt B teams at the Minnesota Hockey District 4 tournament with an exciting 5-4 win in overtime over Luverne Squirt B Sunday at the Redwood Area Community Center.

Worthington jumped to a 2-0 lead in the first period with two goals from Davis Moore, each assisted by Tom Bauman and Ryan Newman. The Cardinals scored next with a powerplay goal by Logan Seaver at the 9:52 mark of the second period. Worthington answered seconds later when Moore completed a hat trick by knocking in a pass from Bauman to make the score 3-1 entering the third period.

Luverne was far from finished and scored three straight goals — Seaver assisted by Tyson Kogel, a powerplay goal by Cooper Arends, and a goal by Kogel — to take a 4-3 lead with only 1:07 left.

Just moments later, defenseman Bryce Olsen scored on a wrist shot from the left point after the Trojans had pulled goalie Sam Fellows to tie the game and send it into overtime.

The Cardinals controlled much of the overtime play and Fellows made five of his 29 saves during this time, including stopping Luverne on a breakaway after the Trojans got caught in a line change.

At the 5:24 mark of the period, Bauman slipped a pass from Moore behind the Luverne goaltender to win the game for Worthington and enable the Trojans to take home the tournament’s third place trophy.

The Cardinals outshot the Trojans 34-22 over the course of the game.

Worthington started district tournament play on Saturday morning with a 5-4 loss to eventual tournament runner-up Windom Squirt B Blue. Worthington took a 4-1 lead in that game into the third period, after goals from Olsen, Moore, and two from Jack Black (the last coming on a one-timer off a pass from Carlos Garcia), only to see the Eagles take the game with four third-period goals.

Fellow had 17 saves in net for Worthington, which was outshot by the Eagles 22-21.

Saturday night the Trojans defeated Fairmont Squirt B 7-1 to advance to the third-place game.

Scoring for Worthington in that game were Bauman (hat trick), Moore (two goals), Olsen, and Lance Hibma. Bauman assisted on one of Moore’s goals and Moore assisted on two of Bauman’s. Krew Aljets had 13 saves in goal for the Trojans, who outshot the Cardinals 40-14.

The Worthington Squirts end their season this Friday evening with a game versus the Sioux Center Tornadoes at the All Seasons Center in Sioux Center, Iowa.

In other action at the tournament, Windom Squirt Yellow won the “B” division with a 1-0 victory over rival Windom Squirt Blue. Redwood Falls won the “A” division with a 6-5 OT win over Luverne.

Tags: sports, prep, hockey