Owatonna Girls Hockey Moves to Top of Big Nine Standings

Owatonna's 3-1 win at Mankato East on Tuesday night boosted the Huskies to the top of the Big Nine standings. OHS is 10-0-1 in the conference and 11-5-1 overall.

The Huskies were supposed to play at Faribault on Tuesday but that got postponed when Faribault closed school due to the weather. Mankato East had their game with John Marshall postponed when Rochester canceled school. Owatonna had been scheduled to play at Mankato East on Monday, which was also postponed due to the onset of the icy weather. The teams decided around noon on Tuesday to play that evening.

Coach Tim Hunst said they are running out of dates on the schedule. He added that this is the first time in his 17 years as OHS coach that something like this came together with two postponements leading to a quickly scheduled game. In fact, the Owatonna players came to school thinking they would have practice after school Tuesday and instead needed to make arrangements to get their game-day gear from home.

Owatonna started quickly with Jenna Bogen scoring on the power play 5:07 into the first period off assists from Margo Achterkirch and Jamie Davison. East/Loyola evened the game on the power play at 11:26 of the second period. Bogen scored the game winner 4:07 into the third period, deflecting a shot from Grace Wolfe. Achterkirch assisted. Maylynn Prokopec ended the scoring with a highlight-reel, end-to-end dash to score at 9:14, unassisted. Laura Ebeling had 21 saves, including several point-blank stops.

With the win, Owatonna edges past John Marshall atop the Big Nine Conference standings. OHS hosts Rochester Century on Thursday, plays at Red Wing on Saturday, entertains Minnehaha Academy on Monday and plays a make-up game at Faribault on Tuesday.