Exciting Games Close out First NILL Regular Season

Our last weekend of games proved to be one of the most exciting of the inaugural NILL season.  We had our first tie of the season and more than one game decided by one goal.

In our first game of the night, Team 3 - Wieczorek and Team 4 - Grand Rapids battled to a 13-13 tie.  Three goals were scored, one to tie the game, one to give Team 3 the lead and another to tie it back up by Team 4, within the span of several seconds to end the game.  Neither team could tally a goal in the overtime period and the game ended in the first tie of the season.  It was an exciting back and forth game.

Brody Carlson led the way for Team 3, keeping them in the game with 6 goals.  He finished the night with 9 goals.  Kyle Limoseth added 4 goals and an assist on the night, while Ian Wieczorek scored 3 goals and added 2 assists, Silas Wieczorek scored 2 goals, Kyle Hansen had 1 goal and 2 assists, Josh Beery scored 1 goal and added 1 assist,  and Jimmy Bendas put in one goal.  Goalie T.J. Vallie stopped 15 shots on the night.

For Team 4 - Grand Rapids, Joey Keating had the hot hand in game one tallying 5 goals and finishing with 6 on the night while contributing an assist.  Tanner Kemppainen scored 4 goals on the night, Ben Dunnell added 3 goals and an assist, Jackson Schwartz scored 2 goals, Zach Brist added 2 goals and Doug Jensen contributed a goal.  Goalie Tyler Altringer made 13 saves on the night.

Game 2 saw the young Honey Badgers team pick up the close win by a 7-5 score over Team 5 - Grand Rapids.   This was another exciting back and forth game.  The Honey Badgers, despite missing star goaltender Mike Vuchetich, out for the season with a torn ACL, finished the day with two wins.  In game 1, old man Andy Holak led the way with 3 goals.  On the day, Dan O'Connell led the team with 5 goals and 2 assists, Bryce Holak finished with 4 goals and 1 assist, Zack Zierden led the team in game 2 and finished the day with 4 goals, and Jesse Larson and Beau Holappa each contributed an assist and some nifty passing.  On defense, Alex Hnatko and August Cadotte led the way with 3 caused turnovers each and 7 and 6 ground balls respectively.  It should be noted that the Honey Badgers finished the season with the second fewest goals given up in the league due in large part to their young defenseman and stellar goalie play.

Honey Badger emergency goalie Pat O'Connell

Speaking of goalies, the Honey Badgers finished the night with a new tender in the cage.  Pat O'Connell, Father of Dan, manned the goal for the Honey Badgers in game 2 and stopped 10 shots with some great saves.  The elder O'Connell, having never played lacrosse or goalie in his life, played extremely well and will be serving as the Honey Badgers emergency goalie in the playoffs due to the season ending injury to team goalie Mike Vuchetich.

Team 5 - Grand Rapids was led by sharpshooter Christian Higginbotham who netted 4 goals.  Zach Beyer and Nick Rae each added 3 goals and Kirk Watson and Brad Sandeen also each added a goal.  Kirk Watson continued his strong play on defense with 4 caused turnovers and picked up 6 ground balls.  Team 5's goalie played well finishing the night with 12 saves.

In one of the more exciting games of the night our two top teams faced off in game three and it came down to one goal with Team 6 - Free Agents prevailing by a score of 16-15 over Team 2 - Halver.  The Free Agents led the entire way, but Team 2 kept cutting the lead and keeping it close behind goals from Matt Reeves who led all scorers in the game with 7.  The Free Agents were led by Brandon Nispel who finished with 4 goals and 1 assist in the game.  On the day, the Free Agents were led in scoring by Brandon Gilseth who put in 6 goals and added 7 assists, while Bobby Moore scored 4 goals and added 7 assists, Scott Wishart added 4 goals and 3 assists, Steve Lokken scored 4 goals and contributed 2 assists, Alex Rogers added 2 goals, Matt Koppang scored a goal and had an assist and Gage Kuhlmey scored 1 goal.  The defense was led by strong play from both Matt Kampmeyer and Matt Koppang who each had 7 caused turnovers on the day.  The Free Agents finished with the #1 scoring defense, giving up the fewest goals in the league.  They also led the league in scoring, finishing just one goal ahead of high scoring Team 2 - Halver.

For Team 2 - Halver, NILL scoring leader Matt Reeves tallied 10 goals on the day and added 2 assists, while Cooper Carlson added 4 goals and an assist, Steven Halver scored 3 goals and added 2 assists, Zach Galo scored 2 goals and added an assist, Britton Harris put in 1 goal and contributed 4 assists with some nice passing, and Tyler Kolquist and Evan Jamar each added a goal and an assist.  Seamus Mackinaw led the defense with 8 caused turnovers.

Game 4 between Team 2 and Team 5 may have been one of the best of the night with both teams battling the entire game.  Despite some heated play which will need to be toned down next week, the game was well played and close with Team 2 coming out ahead by one goal by a score of 9-8.  Game 5 saw the Honey Badgers prevail over Team 4 in a game that was much closer than the score of 10-6 would indicate.  The final game of the night saw the Free Agents take a close 11-8 win over Team 3 who played very well.

It was a fun night of lacrosse.  Next week we start our playoffs with #6 seed Team 5 taking on #3 seed Team 3 at 10:00 a.m. and #5 seed Team 4 taking on #4 seed Team 1 at 11:00 a.m..  Winners of those games will take on #1 seeded Team 6 and #2 seeded Team 2 at 4:00 and 5:00 p.m. respectively.  Our championship game will be played at 6:00 p.m.  More information on playoffs will be in a separate post.