The Juneau-Douglas High School: Yadaa.at Kalé Crimson Bears won the first period of Friday’s home opener against North Pole, but struggled to keep that momentum through the match and fell 4-2 to the visiting Patriots.
JDHS senior forward Dylan Sowa scored the first goal of the game with just 59.2 seconds remaining in the first period, assisted by senior forward Emilio Holbrook, to take a huge energy surge into the second period.
JDHS would be whistled for four penalties in the second stanza, and give up a man for two minutes in each of two roughing and two tripping calls.
North Pole senior Kagen Kramer would capitalize on the mismatches scoring twice in the period, once with 5:54 remaining and then with just 8.7 seconds left to take the breath out of the arena and hold a 2-1 advantage.
“It has got to be more intense,” JDHS captain Luke Bovitz said after the game. “I feel like we weren’t as hard and strong as we could have been. There is more that we can give.”
Bovitz said he needs to to use positive encouragement with the team, “but I need to be better on working harder myself and showing them what needs to happen.”
North Pole outshot JDHS 40 to 25, largely due to penalties on the Crimson Bears resulting in power plays for the Patriots.
“The second period we got into a lot of penalty trouble,” Boline said. “So it is a given you will give up a lot of shots when they are on the power play.”
Aside from the second period the Crimson Bears were in contention.
“Hockey is all about momentum,” Boline said. “We had a lot of momentum in the first period, scoring late in the first period and in the second period we got into penalty trouble, gave them the puck a lot more, gave them puck possession in our offensive zone, they got lots of shots.”
JDHS would tie the game at 2-2 as the third period opened. Freshman forward Ryker Nelson received the puck from Bovitz and beat North Pole sophomore goalie Kieran Olson.
North Pole’s Kramer would find another puck and flick it into JDHS’ net for a 3-2 lead with 8:23 remaining, assisted by junior Carter Borkovec.
With 1:25 left in the game Kramer tallied his fourth goal of the game, assisted by senior Parker Jusczak and Borkovec.
“We’ve just got to find a way to get the momentum and hang onto it,” Boline said. “Hockey is hard. Winning is hard, losing is hard. We have to feel that loss and come back tomorrow and fix those mistakes that directly ended up on the scoreboard. Some of those mistakes are from doing something and some of those mistakes are from not doing something, just kind of watching and waiting for things to happen. Tomorrow we just have to be better with our decision making…the decision to not do anything is not an option. Hockey is a fast game, you have to think fast.”
JDHS senior keeper Caleb Friend stopped 13 of 13 shots in the first period but power play defense is hard and the Crimson Bears gave up 27 shots in the last two periods — four that found the net — while only putting 25 of their own at the North Pole keeper through three periods.
The Crimson Bears face the Patriots again at 3 p.m. Saturday.
• Contact Klas Stolpe at klas.stolpe@juneauempire.com.
