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Edge ekes past Raiders again

Edge ekes past Raiders again Edge ekes past Raiders again

MEDFORD GIRLS HOCKEY

Two meetings, two back-and-forth battles and, unfortunately for the Medford Raiders girls hockey team, it’s now two 4-3 losses this season to their local rivals, the Northern Edge Co-op.

While Friday’s loss in Antigo didn’t come with a last-minute goal like the Dec. 20 game in Medford did, the Edge did break Friday’s 3-3 tie in the third period, getting the score from Taylor Heleniak 4:47 in off a Wyndi Saari assist.

That goal came not long after Raiders Kelli Petrick had evened things up 2:29 into the third period, scoring an unassisted goal.

The win put the Edge at 4-7 for the season and also keeps them in contention to earn the fourth seed in the WIAA sectional tournament next month and earn a regional final home game. Medford fell to 2-7 and has work to do to have any shot of reaching that fourth seed, which was one of the team’s major goals to start the season.

Heleniak had a hat trick for the Northern Edge, scoring the rest of the team’s goals after Saari drew first blood just 1:09 into the game with an unassisted goal.

With the game’s first power play, the Raiders struck at the 7:56 mark of the first period, getting a goal from Victoria Konieczny off assists from Sophia Brunner and Skylier Krueger. At 13:06, the Raiders grabbed their lone lead of the night at 2-1 thanks to Zayleah Leonhardt’s first high school goal, which was unassisted. Medford outshot the Edge 11-9 in the opening period.

Heleniak and the Edge turned things around in the second. The Edge outshot Medford 20-3 in the 17-minute period with Heleniak scoring unassisted at 2:39 and again at 11:09 with an assist from Maddi Roeser to give her team at 3-2 lead heading into the third period.

The Northern Edge wound up with a 38-21 edge in shots on goal. Ilsa Brunner had 34 saves for the Raiders and Kristina Kunelius had 17 saves for the Edge. The Raiders successfully killed four Edge power plays and was one for two on their opportunities.

The Raiders will host the Brookfield Glacier Co-op at the Simek Recreation Center Friday at 8 p.m. and then host rival Northland Pines on Tuesday at 6 p.m., looking for a rare regular-season sweep of the Eagles. From there, the team heads to the annual Beaver Dam tournament Jan. 27-28.

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