The Alexandria girls hockey team earned a five game winning streak and had its sights set on building that streak to six on Thursday, which was senior night for Alexanrdia.
But Fergus Falls junior Maddie Hutler had other plans. Hutler earned a hat-trick for the Otters in a 3-1 victory over the Cardinals.
“We didn’t play a good game defensively,” Alexandria head coach Molly Arola said. “We weren’t winning battles and so we have to tighten up and we have to be consistent, and we weren’t consistent.”
Alexandria had the chance to tie the game late. With 48.4 seconds left in the final frame, Alexandria called a timeout and talked about the final stretch and the offensive attack.
The Cardinals were trailing 2-1 when they pulled senior goalie Jordan O’Kane to have an extra attacker on the other side. They had the puck in the Otters’ defensive half, but couldn’t get many clean looks at the goal.
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After a Cardinal penalty, Hutler notched the hat-trick with a power-play goal with 16.4 left in the game to secure the win. Alexandria dropped to 8-8-1 and 5-3 in Central Lakes Conference play, while the Otters improved to 14-3-2, and 6-2 in the CLC.
The Cardinals took game one of this series 4-2 on Jan. 6. That was the second win in Alexandria’s recent winning streak. Some individual Cardinal streaks got snapped as well on Thursday.
Junior forward Lauren Maras had her five-game point streak snapped and senior defender MaKenna Aure had her three-game point streak snapped, although she did miss the majority of the game after suffering an injury early on.
Arola said that Aure could have a hip contusion but that the team is hopeful that it won’t affect her too much moving forward.
The Cardinals had not allowed more than two goals in any game over their five-game winning streak. Three goals is the most that the Cardinals have given up since Dec. 28, 2021 against Wayzata.
Fergus Falls had 30 shots on goal and limited Alexandria to just 16.
“We got to move the puck more and shoot,” Arola said. “We didn’t shoot very much tonight and we didn’t create enough opportunities.”
Eight of Alexandria’s 16 shots on goal came in the first frame alone. Alexandria also committed 10 penalties to Fergus Falls’ 4.
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Alexandria senior Lauren Rebrovich scored her first goal of the season. Rebrovich scored in the first period with eight minutes left after a Cardinals’ shot bounced in front of the net, and she was able to control the puck and slide it in for the first goal of the game. Freshman forward Kennedy Ellingson was credited with the assist.
“You know a senior scoring on senior night is always special,” Arola said. “So we’re just really happy for her that she did that.”
Following the game, the 11 Cardinal seniors were honored with a video, in addition to being recognized with their families before the game started.
“This senior group, including their families, have been a part of this program for a very long time,” Arola said. “Some of them had older sisters go through the program and now they’re the youngest and they’re going through the program. It’s just a lot of time and commitment that has gone into the senior class and now they’re definitely leaving this program better than when they first came in.”
These seniors still have three more regular season home games, including one on Saturday against Breck (1-13, Section 5A).
“We came out on the wrong end of the stick tonight and we just got to regroup,” Arola said. “Just got to hit the reset button. You know, everything’s not gonna go perfect, but we have to do better and that starts tomorrow.”
Puck drop at the Runestone Community Center on Saturday is set for noon.
