Mason City, IA- The North Iowa Bulls fell in the second game of their two-game series against the Minot Minotauros 4-1 after a physical and intense night at the Mason City Arena.
The game was defined by an avalanche of penalties between the two bitter rivals. After three minor penalties came down in the first period between the teams, the second period featured a one-on-one fight and a line brawl that resulted in 23 different infractions. The tensions did not relax in the third period, which saw ten more penalties for a game total of 36 penalties and a grand total of 174 penalty minutes.
Minot capitalized on one of the first period penalties with Jack O’Hanisain potting a power play goal 10:13 into the night. North Iowa had four power play chances and could not capitalize on those opportunities. However, shortly after one power play chance expired, Ethan Lindahl scored his first goal as a Bull and the first North Iowa home goal of the season 3:21 into the second period. Joe Sweeney and Eli Miller recorded assists on the goal, the second and first of their respective seasons.
After the fight and line brawl, Minot emerged with a second power play chance that they capitalized upon. Joel Lehtinen scored the go-ahead goal and the Tauros never relinquished the lead.
After a messy first half of the third period, Jack O’Hanisain recorded the third power play goal of the night and his fourth goal of the weekend. Will Dawson added the exclamation mark empty-net goal to end the night’s scoring at 4-1.
The Bulls fall to 1-8 on the season.
Santo Simmchen stopped 28 of 31 shots on the North Iowa net.
Brady James stopped 23 of 24 shots on the Minot net.
The Bulls return to the Mason City Arena ice next week for a two-game series against the Aberdeen Wings on Friday, October 20th and Saturday, October 21st. Puck drop for both games is at 7:10 PM.