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Magi close out regular season with a 10-4 win over Jamestown

Alex Eisen/MDN The Magi celebrate after junior forward Brock Bergrude (37) scores Minot's fourth goal Saturday afternoon against Jamestown in the last home game at Maysa Arena this season.

The Minot High School boys hockey team put on one final show at home Saturday evening in its last regular season contest.

The Magicians (12-7-2, 10-3-2 West Region) lit up the scoreboard in a 10-4 victory over the Jamestown Blue Jays (9-12-0, 8-8-0 West Region) at Maysa Arena.

Although, not everything was to the liking of Minot High co-head coach Jason Bennett.

“We shouldn’t have to call a timeout in a 7-2 hockey game when you were outplaying them,” Bennett said. “We didn’t even say anything on the bench, they knew they had to improve the effort. If you take that away, I think we played really well. We defended extremely well.”

The Magi jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first period with a power play goal from junior Jake Viall and sophomore Kyler Stenberg finding the back of the net with 3:59 left in the first period. Senior Easton Bennett assisted on both goals.

The second period offered up seven goals in the span of 8:24 to start the period. Junior Colby Enns kicked things off with a snipe from the left faceoff circle and that was countered with a breakaway goal from Jamestown’s junior Leo Halko.

“We were getting pucks to the net and the power play was clicking, so that’s good to see,” co-head coach Bennett said. “I’m glad we had a couple goal lead there (in the second period). We have been in situations this year where we haven’t had a big enough lead and things kind of went south on us.”

Junior Brock Bergrude had a puck fall to him out of the air for a power play goal to put give the Magi a 4-1 lead before Bennett added a pair of goals to give Minot a five-goal lead halfway through the contest.

Senior Hunter Beckman stopped the bleeding for the Blue Jays with a rebound goal with a cluster of skaters in front of Minot goaltender Odin Nelson.

With 8:36 left in the second period and 31 seconds after Beckman’s goal, junior defenseman Patrick Heide restored Minot’s five-goal advantage. The Magi lead 7-2 going into the second intermission.

Five more goals were scored in the final frame. Jamestown got the first two goals with Beckman getting his second tally of the game and Devin Hofmann picking up a loose puck that Nelson couldn’t cradle in after diving for it. That forced coach Bennett into calling a timeout up 7-4.

“We put ourselves in a good spot to have a letdown,” co-head coach Bennett said. “And we told the kids that it’s a lesson going into regionals. We are not skilled enough to take shifts off or take periods off. We took five minutes off there and it showed.”

The Magi then picked up three goals later in the period on a power play goal for Viall, his second goal of the game, a bad Blue Jays’ turnover gave Bergurde his second goal of the game and Ian Abrahamson scored in the final minutes for his second goal of the season.

The Magi head off to the West Regional tournament in Bismarck next from Feb. 16-18. The state tournament follows and is being held in Fargo from Feb. 23-25.

Alex Eisen covers Minot High School, Minot State athletics and high school sports. Follow him on Twitter @AEisen13

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