North Stars Hand Broncos First Loss of Season

Written by: Rory McGouran

The Humboldt Broncos received their first wakeup call of the young SJHL season.

After opening the year with two impact wins over the Notre Dame Hounds, both which excelled in mainly all aspects of the game, the Humboldt Broncos were handed their first loss in a 6-3 defeat to another Ag Risk Division rival, the Battlefords North Stars.

After ten minutes of a feeling out process, Dylan Esau, the longest tenured North Star, opened the scoring with his first goal of the year. Alec Saretzky evened up the scoring with his third of the year and has now scored in all three games so far this season for the Broncos.

The tightly contested matchup flowed into the second period relatively the same way with teams alternating goals throughout. Every time the Broncos scored, Battlefords was there to answer right back. Logan Kurki gave the Broncos their first lead of the game. However, just 11 seconds later, rookie Holden Doell netted his first of the campaign to tie it even at 2-2. Two and a half minutes following that, Kurki set up Samuel Marburg to regain the Broncos’ lead, but once again the Northstars responded. Halfway through the second period, while on the Broncos powerplay, Tanner Klimpke jumped on a loose puck and fed Battlefords native, Jake Southgate who scored shorthanded to tie the game once again. Looking back, the goal proved to be the deflator for the Humboldt Broncos.

It was all North Stars in the third period, three straight goals included an empty netter by K.T. Walters, Brad Blake, and Dylan Esau, respectively, stretched the eventual final to 6-3.

The Broncos loss drops their record to 2-1, while the win lifts the North Stars to 3-1-1. Humboldt will be back in action the following night to try and wipe this from the memory back when they travel to Kindersley and face the Klippers. Meanwhile, Battlefords will head into the SJHL Showcase scheduled for October 4-6.