The #3 Great Falls Americans (6-4-0-0, 12 pts.) and the #5 Badlands (SD) Sabres (4-3-1-1, 10 pts.) met on the ice for the first time during the 2024-25 NA3HL junior hockey season on Friday evening in Great Falls.
This year, Great Falls and Badlands will face each other four times (compared to eight during the 2023-24 season where Great Falls went 5-2-0-1 against the Sabres). In addition to this weekend’s games (October 11-12), the Americans will travel to Rapid City, South Dakota for two games in February (21-22).
After nine contests and five victories, Great Falls is led by returning forward Ty O’Bey and Easton Kennedy with seven goals apiece. Kennedy has the most points (14) for coach Greg Sears’ team and Garren Narvaez is the leader with nine assists.
The Sabres, coached by Brooks Mitzel, has Zach Vockler returning to the team and leads his South Dakota squad with eight goals and 11 points. New Jersey native Patrick Gosselin has a team-high of six assists.
Badlands started the season with two victories against the Yellowstone (WY) Quake, who are still seeking their first win. They are 2-3-1-1 since their opening weekend in September. The Sabres have 14 players back from last year’s team.
Jaden GeRosa and Kurt Mueller performed tonight’s National Anthem using their trumpets.
Easton Kennedy, Blake Komrofske, and Blayne Jusczak each put the biscuit in the basket to lead the #3 Great Falls Americans to a 3-1 win over the visiting Badlands (SD) Sabres on Friday night at the Great Falls Ice Plex. Zach Vockler tallied his eighth goal of the year for the Sabres in the third period.
After the first period concluded, the Americans and the Sabres could not get the puck in the net despite taking 16 total shots.
Despite a slow start by both clubs, Great Falls took a 1-0 advantage late in the second period as Zac Orwig and Matt Beazley found Easton Kennedy open for the goal. The short-handed tally came with 5:35 remaining in the stanza. The host team contributed 18 of the 30 shots-on-goal.
Great Falls took a 2-1 lead after the first six minutes of the third period. EJ Sanchez and Gavin Denis provided their first assists as a member of the Americans as they successfully got the puck to Blake Komrofske, who added his first goal of the season. The Sabres cut into the Americans lead three minutes later as Zack Vockler tacked on his eighth goal with helpers coming from Jonas Farmen and Laurence Lundberg. Blayne Jusczak closed out the game with his second lamplighter with 5:53 remaining off a pass from Fisher Hannesson and Sebe Perez.
Great Falls outshot Badlands 33-20 after the opening period to finish with 41 shots.
Just seven minor infractions were called in the first contest between the Montana and South Dakota opponents. Seven power play chances went unanswered.
Kaden Rhyder improves to 6-3-0-0 after nine games. He was perfect through the first two periods before giving up one in the third to finish with 27 saves. Hunter Oger, the goaltender for the Sabres, made 38 saves in his second loss this season (2-2-0-0).
FRONTIER DIVISION UPDATE: Helena Bighorns (9-1-0-0) standout Austin Uecker prevented the game from going into an extra frame when he scored the lone goal of the contest against the #2 Sheridan (WY) Hawks (7-3-1-0) on Friday at Steed Arena in Helena, Montana. Uecker’s fifth goal was assisted by Caden Fenstein and Owen Gruener with 13 minutes left before the second intermission. Helena utilized their home ice advantage with 49 shots-on-goal. Malik Johnson, who appeared in the net for Helena six times this season and is now 6-0-0-0, stopped all 18 shots. John Simon’s record fell to 3-2-0-0 and gathered 48 saves for the Hawks.
#4 Bozeman Ice Dogs (5-3-0-0) earned a 6-0 shutout road victory over the #8 Yellowstone (WY) Quake (0-11-0-0) during Friday’s NA3HL action in Cody, Wyoming. Seth Hanson starred for the Ice Dogs by creating two scoring opportunities and dishing out one assist. Tyler Klingbeil scored once and added two assists in Bozeman’s fifth win in eight contests. Jack Ryan (Bozeman) has registered two wins in three games (2-1-0-0) by swatting away all 13 shots by the Quake. Matthew Neeser, who is still searching for his first win for the Quake, had a busy night dealing with Bozeman’s offensive attack. He ended the night with 67 saves.
The #6 Gillette (WY) Wild (4-5-1-0) and the #7 Butte Irish (4-5-0-0) are idle this weekend and will return to action next weekend.
NOTES: During the last week, Coach Greg Sears and the Americans added four new players to the team including forward John Lang (Fargo, ND), defenseman Matt Beazley (Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada) and goaltenders Patrick Forsythe (Balmertown, Ontario, Canada) and Karanveer Kooner from Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
