Wildcats push unbeaten streak to six games

In the game of hockey, a strong scoring from the blue line is a great luxury to have. For the Dodge County Wildcats, they haven’t had too much scoring punch from their defensemen this year, but they’ve begun to pick up the pace and play more aggressively which opened up the offense as the team stretched their unbeaten streak to six games after tying Hayfield and defeating Bloomington Jefferson last week.

“Some teams have started to trap us a bit,” Dodge County Head Coach Jeremy Gunderson explained. “We had to adjust our play a little bit to have our defensemen become more aggressive and jump into the play a little bit. It will make us more dangerous and make our opponents have to account for another look.”

That aggressive play from the blue line began in Hastings as the Wildcats hit the road to face the Raiders. As a defensive battle, the Wildcats would strike first when Katie Robinson picked up her fourth goal of the season on the power play at 16:18. 

The Raiders would strike back with an Anna Williams power play goal at 5:04 of the third period and both teams couldn’t find the go-ahead goal as the game ended in a 1-1 tie.

“It was probably the fastest and most physical game we’ve played in this year,” Gunderson observed. “The referees were letting everything go. We’re a smaller and faster type of team, so that really slowed us up a bit, but I thought it was good for us. When stuff like that isn’t going to get called, you have to adjust your style and deal with it.”

The Wildcats continued to be aggressive as they traveled to Bloomington Jefferson on Saturday afternoon. The game got off to a rough start when Bloomington Jefferson forward Nicole Nightengale went behind the Dodge County net and had her clearing attempt deflect off a skate and back into the Wildcat net for an early 1-0 deficit.

The lead would be short lived as Elly Strunk would slam home an equalizer from Bella Wagner for her first goal of the season 63 seconds later. Strunk would put in a second goal unassisted at 12:26 of the second period for a 2-0 lead and fellow defenseman Barret Boyer would add an insurance goal from Robinson at 5:03 in the third to secure a 3-1 victory.