Olivia King could change the first letter of her name from "O" to zero following her spotless performance in Thursday's game against the Moorhead Spuds at Essentia Health Sports Center.
The Warriors' freshman goalie stopped all 19 shots Moorhead flung at her and helped Brainerd register a 3-0 Section 8-2A victory. It was the second varsity shutout for King who's already in her second season as a starter.
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Warriors 3, Spuds 0
The key: Brainerd goalie Olivia King stopped all 19 Moorhead shots
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Overall: Brd 4-2-0, Moor 0-3-1
Next: Brainerd at Crookston 1 p.m. Saturday.
Photo Gallery of the game: 151 Photos! - Click Here!
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"Hopefully I will have many more this year," she said. "I'm excited for the season. The girls help me with everything. They're hard-workers. They had a good game."
Warriors coach Jim Ernster said King's solid between the pipes night in and night out, which gives the rest of the team confidence.
"They can be that much more aggressive defensively all over the place because they know Olivia will be solid, control her rebounds and be in position that if they make a mistake she will be right there," he said. "She just continues to be square to the puck so she's not giving teams much to shoot at and that becomes frustrating for them.
"They come down and they come down and there's nothing to shoot at. It just becomes more and more frustrating so then they try to get prettier with their passes and that creates more turnovers. That kind of has a snowball effect."
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With about six minutes left, King came up with two big saves during a Moorhead flurry in front of the net. With about 12 minutes left in the second, she thwarted Moorhead's Jenna Perreault, who was camped near the crease. She stymied Kyle Harrom on a breakaway in the final two minutes of the first.
King said a few shots did give her trouble.
"But I held strong," she said, "and the girls always help me out, clear pucks."
King credited her defense for helping her record her first shutout since a 2-0 win over Willmar Dec. 4, 2014.
"They're amazing always, every night," she said. "They really brought it tonight. I'm happy for the team. It was a good night."
She was backed by two Abby Smith goals and one by Abby Pohlkamp as Brainerd outshot the Spuds 25-19 and raised its overall mark to 4-2-0.
Smith slapped in an empty netter with 53 seconds remaining. In the second period, she enabled the Warriors to seize a 2-0 lead on a shot that glanced off the pads of Spuds goalie Paige Schmidt. The goals were Smith's sixth and seventh of the year.
Pohlkamp, another freshman, scored her first varsity goal at 8:21 of the first. She took a nifty pass from Ally Smith and slipped it through the 5-hole.
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"That's one of the neat things about high school sports," Ernster said. "You get young kids - whether they're eighth-graders, freshmen or sophomores - and it's nice to see that enthusiasm on their face. That's what's awesome about being a coach - seeing young girls be successful in those situations. It's just a lot of fun."
The victory was the third in a row for Brainerd, which travels to Crookston Saturday afternoon. Ernster said it's way too early to say the program has turned around.
"I think we're going to switch lines up again because you're always kind of tinkering with what's the right chemistry, what's the right balance," he said. "You want to have three lines if you can, but certainly we're moving in the right direction.
"We still have to be cleaner. 3-0 is OK, but we need to be cleaner with our passes coming out of our zone and in the neutral zone be cleaner dumping it in. It's a lot of little things that add up. That's what we've got to work on."
Moorhead 0 0 0 - 0
Brainerd 1 1 1 - 3
First period: Brd-Abby Pohlkamp (Ally Smith) 8:21
Second period: Brd-Ally Smith (Brooke Mimmack, Elaina Christiansen) 6:54
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Third period: Brd-Ally Smith eng 16:07
Shots on goal: Brd 7-9-9-25, M 11-4-4-19
Goalies: Brd-Olivia King (19 saves); M-Paige Schmidt (22 saves).
MIKE BIALKA may be reached at mike.bialka@brainerddispatch.com or 218-855-5861. Follow on Twitter at www.twitter.com/bertsballpark .
