Mason City, IA- The North Iowa Bulls and Austin Bruins concluded their weekend and season series at the Mason City Arena with a 5-1 final score favoring the Bruins.
The teams traded tallies in the first thirteen minutes. Ocean Wallace opened up the scoring in the opening stanza with his third goal of the weekend. Nolan Grier evened up the scoring with a power play tally four minutes later, recording his eight goal of the season. Liam Bard and Charles Beland recorded assists on Grier’s goal. Austin Salani and Connor Brust restored the Bruins’ lead with a pair of goals late in the frame to send the game into the first intermission at 3-1.
North Iowa created two beautiful scoring chances but were robbed by Bruins goaltender Vilgot Holm with a highlight reel stretch save and seconds later by the pipe. Instead of being even or down by just one goal, the Bulls trailed by two. Austin capitalized on two chances to extend the lead midway through the second period, with Salani and Dylan Cook potting their remarkable weekend scoring performances. with six and ten points across the two game set respectively.
The third period saw a few dustups between the regional rivals and a few more ten-bell saves by the goaltenders, but neither team added to their goal counter, ending the night at 5-1 for Austin.
Bulls goalie Connor Graham stopped 30 of 35 shots while Bruin goalie Vilgot Holm stopped 20 of 21 in the Austin net.
North Iowa opens up a home-and-home series vs St. Cloud next weekend with a road game on Thursday night at the St. Cloud Municipal Athletic Complex and a Friday night home game at the Mason City Arena. Thursday is the last home game of the Bulls’ 23-24 season and Friday is Mason City Youth Hockey Night, during with the Bulls will wear specially designed Mason City Youth Hockey Mohawk jerseys.