Tradition Mortgage, Hepp's Salt, Empowers Open with Wins

Edina, MN - The season’s first three games were played out at Braemar Arena on Thursday evening.  As expected, the skill and quality of play and compete level was at a premium level among the five teams.  Tradition Mortgage shutout Performance Office Papers 5-0, Hepp’s Salt defeated Trash Panda 5-1 and in their second game of the night Performance Office Papers fell by a score of 3-1 to Empowers Peformance.. 

Tradition Mortgage 5 Performance Office Papers 0

Talla Hanson (BSM) had a pair of goals and Chloe King (Holy Family) had a goal and an assist to pace the way 
for Tradition Mortgage.  Performance Office Papers had two breakaway opportunities to go along with three posts in the game.  When they were just missing on those chances, Tradition goalie Taylor Thompson (Forest Lake) made 12 first half saves and Maple Grove’s Bella Prosser delivered an impressive 22-save second half to preserve the shutout and win.  

Other goal scorers for Tradition Mortgage (1-0) were Evelyn Lundeen (Blaine)  and Lorelai Nelson (Edina). 

Performance Office Papers (0-1) had a strong effort in goal by their tandem as well with Kayla Swartout making 21 saves while Gianna Marchese (Rosemount) made 15 second half saves. 

Hepp’s Salt 5 Trash Panda 1 

Hepp’s Salt had no time for the new kids on the block as they turned aside Trash Panda in their first game in the Dangle League by a score of 5-1.  Laini Gnetz (Woodbury) had a memorable performance, picking up points in four of her team’s five goals.  Her 2 goals and 2 assists propelled herself to the top of the leader board in Dangle League scoring. 

Gnetz sister Brooke (Woodbury) was productive as well assisting on Laini’s first goal and Libby Moe’s goal (Edina) which stood as the game-winning goal. Jemma McAlexander (Minnetonka) delivered a multi-point effort with 2 assists of her own.  Goalies Kaia Weiland (Centennial/Spring Lake Park) and Janie McGawn (Blake) combined to make 32 saves as each played a half for the win for Hepp's Salt (1-0).   

Trash Panda’s (0-1) Cate McCoy (Edina) scored on the backend of a nice set up from the left wing wall by Sydney Burnevik (Champlin Park/Coon Rapids) to pull their Trash Panda team within a goal at 2-1.  It was all the closer they would get as Hepp finished the game strong to earn the win. 

Empowers Performance 3 - Performance Office Papers 1

It was a quick turn-around for Performance Office Papers (0-2) as they were slated to play their second game in 3 hours on opening night.  They had to play with short term memories after getting thumped by Tradition Mortgage by a score of 5-1.  Their fast start showed they were well aware of the pace the game requires.  Yet it was Empower’s Performance (1-0) that struck first on Sydney Boss Krohn (Shattuck St. Mary's) goal.  Alexa Van Straaten (Dodge County) started the play with a nice pass high in her zone to spring Boss Krohn.  

Andover’s Claire Hills made 12 saves to produce the shutout period in goal for Empower’s performance while her counterpart Gianna Marchese (Rosemount) was equally stout in goal for Performance Office Paper’s making 17 saves on 18 shots. 

Empower's evened the game at one with a goal scored from the point by Claire Jelinek (Minnetonka).  Brielle Newton (Mankato East) got it all started with a nice feed to the waiting Jelinek.  

The story of the second half and game for that matter went to goalie Vivienne Anderson (Orono) was lockdown in goal, and as play-by-play man Matt Harrington proclaimed, "Anderson is impossible to beat here tonight!"  Anderson made 21 saves in the half and was athletic in doing so.  

The Dangle League will be back in action on Tuesday June 24th.