RRCC falls just short of third straight championship

Editor's Note: Brenley Anderson of Rainy River played on the Rainy River Community College hockey team this past season.

By Dan Falloon
Fort Frances Times

Rainy River Community College Voyageurs head coach Evan Amdahl knew his team was in tough in its attempt to win a third-straight American Collegiate Hockey Association Div. II championship.
Before enduring an 8-1 thumping at the hands of Boston’s Northeastern University, the Voyageurs had to endure a major speed bump in the semi-finals against St. Scholastica.
RRCC battled the Saints for about three-and-a-half hours in a game that took three overtimes to complete.
“The semi-final game was scheduled to be played at 8:45 Saturday night, so by the time it’s done, it’s 12:15 [a.m.],” noted Amdahl.
“And with the daylight savings time on top of it, it was really 1:15 [a.m.]
“So by the time we got back to the hotel and got food in them, it was probably about 3 [a.m.] and we had to play [the final] the next day at noon,” he added.
Amdahl praised his team for hanging in against the undefeated Huskies, but ultimately the fatigue from playing nearly three full games in about 18 hours started to take its toll.
“For a period-and-a-half, we were hanging in there in the championship game,” he stressed. “It was 4-1 after the second period, but the second half of the second period and the third period went just downhill.
“It’s pretty tough. When you have high expectations, second in the nation is a disappointment,” he sighed.
Amdahl noted RRCC won’t have to worry about the Huskies in years to come as the champions played their way right out of Division II.
“The team we got beat by, they’re moving up to Division I next year,” he reported.
“They had 150 goals [for] and four against [in 17 regular-season games]. They were pretty dominant.”
Rainy River product Brenley Anderson notched RRCC’s lone goal in the final.
There were moments in the overtime thriller in the semi-finals where the Voyageurs stared defeat right in the face, but refused to flinch in the tense situations.
“The whole team just expected to win,” Amdahl said. “In the second [overtime] period, we had a girl get knocked down right in the crease and fall right on the puck, which is a penalty shot.
“It is what it is. I couldn’t argue it.
“[But goalie] Katie Stearns just had ice water in her veins,” he lauded. “She came through and saved it for us.”
Stearns finished with 31 saves against the Saints.
The Voyageurs won it when Fort Frances product Stevie-Lee Langford slipped one into the Saints’ net with the third overtime about to end. Langford took a feed from Anderson and was off to the races.
“Stevie-Lee beat the defenceman and was running out of room, kind of low in their zone,” Amdahl recalled.
“Me and the assistant coaches talked about it afterwards, and it was one of those where she got the breakaway, she beat the girl, and then she’s running out of room.
“So you think she’s losing the angle, and as soon as we thought that, it hit the back of the net and, boom, we erupted in celebration.”
The stunned Amdahl said Langford told him that history was on her side.
“Stevie came off the ice and I said, ‘I didn’t think you had the angle on that’ and she said, ‘Coach, I’ve made that shot on her before.’”
Anderson, Courtney Scholler of International Falls, and Winnipeg’s Kaylynn McBurney rounded out the scoring for the Voyageurs in that one.
The Voyageurs’ pool during the round-robin consisted of a pair of East Division teams that were virtual unknowns to RRCC going into the tournament. Still, the Voyageurs knocked off Vermont 4-1 before blanking Delaware 3-0.
“Vermont only had six losses, but all six were to only two teams, so we knew that they were pretty good coming in,” explained Amdahl.
“We watched Delaware play Vermont the previous day, and Delaware won 3-2 on a goal that went in with 1:35 left in the game, so those two teams are pretty close.
“Our goalie, Kelsey Fuerst from Dryden, she got a shutout against a team [Delaware] that had been undefeated throughout the regular season from the East, so that was exciting, too,” Amdahl added.
Langford scored four goals over those two round-robin games while Anderson (with a pair) and Kylie Harala of the Falls also found the net.
The majority of the RRCC team comes from the Borderland region, with Amdahl saying the locally-dominated roster is beneficial for both players and fans.
“The school and the community like to see local kids playing here, so you try to get as many local kids as you can,” noted Amdahl.
“Everybody wants to stay home so their family and friends can watch them play.”