From Minot Daily News
By Sean Williams
With a week of preparation before hitting the ice again, the Minot State men’s hockey team (5-0-0 overall) played host to Midland University (0-3-0 overall) for a two-game series starting on Friday night.
It’s been a terrific start to the season for the Beavers, who are coming off back-to-back sweeps of University of Jamestown and Liberty University, where the Beavers found the back of the net 16 times and allowing only seven goals thus far. With the excellent start, they enter the weekend ranked as the No. 2 team in the American Collegiate Hockey Association (ACHA) poll.
The Midland Warriors were swept by Central Oklahoma on the road to begin the 2022 campaign, and they will be tasked with another tough road series once again. The Beavers have been on the right side of the historical matchup between these teams, as they have won the last four games and scored five or more goals in each contest.
Continuing that recent trend of high scoring contests and opening a thrilling weekend full of Homecoming games in the Magic City, the Beavers got the festivities started on Friday night with a win over the Warriors in an 11-2 final.
Acting swiftly to set the tone for an exciting weekend was Jay Buchholz, who scored his second goal of the season one minute into the game, with assists to Joey Moffatt and Sheldin Howard to give the Beavers a 1-0 lead.
Firing on all cylinders were the Beavers, who were active on both ends, creating a neutral zone turnover leading to their next goal and they would add on shortly after as they put the game away early in commanding fashion.
With 14:26 left in the opening period, the Beavers regained possession of the puck after a turnover and utilized beautiful centering passes from Reece Henry and Reid Arnold to set Josh Pederson up for his first goal of the season to make it a 2-0 lead.
Two more Beavers goals by Connor Navrot and Landyn Cochrane with 11:49 to go in the opening period caused the Warriors to make a goalie change. Buchholz would welcome the new goalie with his second goal of the night 20 seconds later to give the Beavers a massive 5-0 lead.
Carter Barley of the Beavers would join in on the goal scoring party, netting his second of the year with 7:47 left in the first period to extend the Beavers lead at 6-0. In what was an emphatic offensive explosion in period one, this would bring the game to its final heading into the first intermission.
Beavers’ goaltender Riley Wallace got his first start in net this season and was hardly tested in period one, however, he stopped all five shots the Warriors put on goal. The fury of goals by his team put Wallace in a low-pressure spot moving into the remainder of the game.
Period two would not bring quite the same storyline early on, but the Beavers still showed a display of tough defense. After Cochrane got called for the first penalty of the game, the Beavers penalty kill stepped up, not allowing the Warriors to get a shot off with the advantage.
Unable to resist the urge to score more were the Beavers, who made it a 10-0 lead in period two courtesy of goals by Cochrane and Barley, their second of the game, Drew Carter who connected on his first goal of the year, and Davis Sheldon who put the team at the double-digit goal mark.
After a rare turnover to give the Warriors a breakaway chance, Logan Wotton would cash in with 28 seconds left in the second period to trim the Beavers lead to 10-1 and both teams would head to the final break with the same score.
Moving into the final period, the Beavers would bring their lead back to double digits when Christian Kadolph scored his first of the year to make it an 11-1 game with 14:58 left. Kolten Wright of the Warriors would add one more for his team on a two-man advantage with 5:53 left, making it an 11-2 game and the eventual final score.
The Beavers showed an overwhelming offensive attack early in period one, which brought the feeling that the Warriors would not be able to climb out from that deficit, especially with the way the Beavers were impacting the game on both ends of the ice.
Flashing the ability to do whatever they wanted, the Beavers controlled the puck for the vast majority of the game and the Warriors struggled to register a serious scoring threat outside of their first goal.
Wallace ended his first start in net by stopping 17 shots on goal. The Beavers blasted 35 shots on goal compared to the 19 from the Warriors. Giving the Warriors a man advantage in four instances, the Beavers squashed three of them to only allow one goal on the penalty kill.
(Originally published at https://www.minotdailynews.com/sports/local-sports/2022/10/beavers-blast-six-goals-in-first-period-top-warriors-11-2/)
