The Monroe Avalanche Monroe Pee Wee B team took to the ice this past weekend playing two games. On Saturday December 28th, game one of the weekend, the Avalanche hosted McFarland at SLICE arena. The Avalanche seemed to be a little slow the first two periods and were not able to put anything together as McFarland came out with two goals after two periods of play. The third period the Avalanche seemed to be a different team. They were passing the puck more, fore checking, and putting more pressure on McFarland and even though they weren't able to score themselves, the Avalanche held McFarland to a 2-0 win. McFarland launched 43 shots on net against Avalanche Goaltender Heath Bear who put on a stellar performance making 41 saves.

 

The second game of the weekend, Sunday December 29th, the Pee Wee B Avalanche team traveled to Oregon. Oregon scored the first two goals of the game within the first 2 minutes but the Avalanche answered midway through the 1st period with a nice goal by Ty O'Connor who received a centering pass from Defenseman Kendall Wild. At the end of the 1st period, with the score 2-1 Oregon, the game took a turn for the worst for the Avalanche. Oregon put a string of three goals together in the first 5 minutes of the 2nd period that left the Avalanche down 5-1 and left little hope for the Avalanche to make a come back against a more skilled and fundamentally sound Oregon team. However, with less than 2 minutes to go in the 2nd period, first year hockey player Ruger Hansen, from Dakota, IL, received a pass in front of the net from Rebekah Rath and Riley Jones, and launched a shot pass the Oregon Goaltender for his FIRST EVER Avalanche goal. High fives, dog piles, and celebration by the bench was wild as they celebrated Hansen's first ever goal. Unfortunately, Oregon answered that goal with two more of their own within the last 39 seconds of the second period making the score 7-2 at the end of two. Oregon did not let up and scored two more goals in the third period making it 9-2. With two minutes to go in the game, Avalanche skater Ryan Molitor was able to pick up a loose puck in front of the net and lift it past Oregon's goaltender to find the back of the net, unassisted, giving the Avalanche their third and final goal of the game, leaving the final score 9-3. Although the Avalanche lost the game, the overall play by the team looked good considering being shorthanded and had very few practices over Christmas Break. Avalanche Goaltender Bear recorded 31 saves on the game. The Pee Wee B's next games are January 4th against Verona at 10:45am and second game is January 5th against Dubuque at 2:30pm. Both games are Home at SLICE arena.