Austin Packers girls’ hockey blanked by Northfield 6-0

The Austin Packers girls’ hockey team faced their sternest test thus far this 2020-2021 season Tuesday evening as they played host to Big 9 Conference leading Northfield at Riverside Arena, and Rachel Braun tallied two goals and goaltender Maggie Malecha turned aside 13 shots as the Raiders blanked the Packers, 6-0.

Northfield tallied the first of their two short-handed goals to open the scoring at 14:58 of the first period when Mya Wesling took advantage of a crazy carom off the boards in the Packer zone on a clearing attempt to roll the puck past Austin goaltender Shelby Davidson to put the Raiders on top 1-0 at the end of one period.  Braun scored the first of her two goals at 7:28 of the second period to make the score 2-0, defenseman Cambria Monson tallied unassisted at 12:02 to increase Northfield’s lead to 3-0, and Braun then scored on a short-handed breakaway with only :04 left in the period to increase the Raider lead to 4-0 heading into the third period.  Freshman forward Ayla Puppe, the top scorer for Northfield then tallied only :16 into the third off of a feed from the corner from defenseman Grace McCoshen to make the Raider lead 5-0, and McCoshen then finished the scoring with a goal at 10:50 of the third.

Shelby Davidson was peppered with 52 shots Tuesday evening and made 46 saves, and each team was 0 for 2 on the power play.  With the loss, Austin drops to 4-3 on the season, and the Packers are back in action Thursday evening at Mankato All Seasons Arena versus the East/Loyola Panthers, with face-off at 7:30 p.m.