Holy Family stays hot, advances to semis with win over Spuds

When you’re hot, you’re hot.

The Holy Family Fire continued their solid play with a quarterfinal win over Moorhead Thursday. The Fire were coming off an overtime upset against top-ranked Minnetonka to advance to their first state tournament in program history. The momentum seemed to carry over as they dominated play early on against Moorhead on their way to a 3-1 victory.

After a scoreless first period where the Fire outshot the Spuds 9-0, Addy Cowan got the scoring started with a short-handed goal at the 6:20 mark. Six minutes later Josie Linn broke free and on a great individual got behind the defense and was able to deke one past Moorhead goalie Taylor Kressin. Kressin had been hard to beat all night. The Jori Jones finalist faced 27 shots in the first two periods and recorded 25 saves.

It stayed 2-0 until 11 minutes into the third when Moorhead’s Addison Moos lifted a shot over the shoulder of Holy Family goalie Kayla Swartout to cut the lead in half. But that would be all the offense the Spuds could muster against a strong Holy Family squad who played well in all three zones. They outshot the Spuds 35-17. Kressin kept the Spuds in it with 32 saves on 34 shots.

Holy Family’s Angela Cody added an empty netter for some insurance and the the 3-1 win.

The Fire will hope to continue their hot play against top-ranked Edina tomorrow night. The two teams met on Dec. 17 at Holy Family with Edina pulling away with a 4-2 win. But that was two months ago, and now both teams are playing for a chance to reach the state finals in what should be a great match up.

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