Young Highland skaters overpowered by talented Collinsville outfit
Highland hockey club coach Joel Hawkins has been known to refer to the Mississippi Valley Conference Hockey Association in terms of a league of Haves and Have Nots during this season.
On Thursday, Dec. 12, at Granite City Arena, Collinsville played the role of The Haves and Hawkins’ young Highland club was relegated to the unenviable role of The Have Nots.
That pairing led to a not so pretty finish for the Bulldogs.
Collinsville scored four goals in the final 10 minutes of the first period and exploded for five more goals in the second period en route to an 11-1 mercy-rule win over Highland.
“This league has a lot of Haves and Have Nots and we were playing one of the teams that has a lot of good stuff tonight,” Hawkins said.
Additionally, the Bulldogs were missing six players due to illness, injury, or other commitments and it made the night a challenging one for HHS.
”We were down five or six scratch-offs tonight so we had a really short bench. In turn, we didn’t play very together and it adds up to what you saw out there,” Hawkins said.
Jakob Schreiber got the Kahoks going with a goal at the 4:05 mark of the first period to make it 1-0.
The Kahoks then broke loose for three goals in the final seven minutes of the first period as Connor Bush, Alexander Stenger, and Joel Arnold pushed them out to a 4-0 lead after one period.
Collinsville (7-3-2) broke the game open with a five-goal barrage in the second period keyed by a Nathan Austin goal and capped by a goal from Jakob Bolandis.
A Cody Watts goal with 9:35 left in the third period pushed the Collinsville margin to 10-1 and kickstarted the running clock for the game.
Dominic Emig scored with 2:39 left in the second period to account for the Bulldogs lone tally. Highland leading scorer Lucas Korte was shutout by the Kahoks defense.
Bulldogs coach Hawkins believes team has bright outlook
Hawkins still believes his club his slowly learning and improving.
“We’ve got to keep working on things that are the basics of the sport and our passing has actually improved quite a bit since we started and the offense will come as we get a little bit better skill-wise. But I really like our kids, so I’m excited about seeing how they do (the rest of the season),” Hawkins said.
Korte’s scoring punch represents major plus for the Bulldogs (1-9-1) the rest of the campaign. Korte, a senior forward, has scored a team- and league-high 28 goals with 9 assists for 37 points.
“He does things (on the ice) that I’ve never even thought of,” Hawkins said. “He’s been doing stuff (in the game) since he was a little guy and he’s as good a player as there is in the league. He didn’t score a lot of points tonight, but he’s still very obvious and he’s a very good player.”
Next up for Highland skaters
Highland will look to get back into the win column on Monday, Dec. 16, against struggling East Alton-Wood River at 9 p.m. at East Alton Ice Arena.