Icemen finish regular season, head to districts
Published 12:00 am Thursday, February 22, 2007
The Albert Lea Icemen ended regular season play on victory road winning three of its final five games.
The Icemen will now prepare for district action which begins Saturday in Inver Grove Heights.
Albert Lea hosted Inver Grove Red Feb. 3, but despite a good game the locals came up short in goals as they would lose 7-2, scoring for Albert Lea were Scott Possehl and Nate Yentsch.
Woodbury joined Albert Lea on local ice Feb. 10. Unfortunately, for the Icemen a penalty driven game would be the demise for them.
Although the shots on goal for Albert Lea were 44 to Woodbury&8217;s 23 only defenseman Bryce
Adams would score in Albert Lea&8217;s 5-1 loss.
The Icemen took to the road as they traveled to Inver Grove Blue for a 3-2 victory Feb. 11.
Scoring for the locals were defenseman Alex Sheetz with one goal and forward Nate Yentsch put two in net to put Albert Lea on top. Phil Runden would assist with all three goals.
The Icemen&8217;s final week of regular season game would have to be their finest of games played throughout the season as they would &8220;rock the house&8221; in Rochester with a 6-3 victory.
Icemen center Chris Karge would start the scoring off only 13 minutes into the first period.
Runden and Nick Koza would soon follow with a goal each at 12:31 and 10:53 in the first period.
Karge would score again at 10:38 before Rochester joined the scoring with one goal, but Yentsch would follow with a goal with only 19 minutes left to play in the first period to put Albert Lea up four goals at the end of the first period of play.
Runden would bring home the final goal for the locals as he scored in the second period and Rochester would score the final two goals of the game in the third.
Albert Lea dominated the shots on net with 40 to Rochester&8217;s 19.
Albert Lea would save the best for the last as they traveled to Woodbury to earn a 3-1 victory to a team that had only lost one game throughout their season.
Penalties were a part of the game for both teams but the Icemen would not let that be a reason to quit as they put all their effort into a great victory over Woodbury.
Scoring for the Icemen were Yentsch with two goals and Scott Possehl.
Assisting in goals Mark Stokke and Dalton Hanson.
Goaltender Dustin Hafstad had an amazing night with 37 saves for the Icemen.