Marlin girls beat Watertown

The Marlins girls’ hockey team beat the Watertown Lakers 5-3 on Friday night at the Mitchell Activities Center.

Mitchell improved its record to 15-4 with the win.

The game was the first of three this weekend for the Marlins, who finish their regular season on Sunday.

Mitchell hosts Aberdeen today at 3 p.m. and finishes its schedule at Brookings on Sunday at 5 p.m.

The Marlins got out to an early lead over Watertown with a goal by Haley Stahl just over four minutes into the game.

The Lakers tied the game at 1 early in the second, but Lindsey Lawrence answered back with a goal of her own.

Mitchell took a two-goal lead, and the teams went back and forth with goals until Anna Rice’s goal with 3:11 left in the game finished off the scoring with the Marlins in the lead 5-3.

“We finished the game well,” Marlins coach Eric Hohn said. “Last time we played (Watertown), we had the same lead going into the third period and we let it slip away.”

The Marlins already know that they will have the third seed at the state tournament, so Hohn thinks this weekend the team can focus on some minor things that need to be worked on.

“We saw that our passing is still pretty weak,” Hohn said of Friday’s game. “These are good teaching games.”

Lindsey Lawrence led Mitchell in scoring with two goals. Anna Rice scored once and had three assists.

Haley Stahl and Morgan Griebel finished with a goal and an assist each while Kayla Murtha had two assists for the Marlins.

Hannah Spates stopped 19 of the 22 shots from Watertown.

Today the Marlins take on 0-17-1 Aberdeen, while Sunday’s game has a matchup of two of the top three teams as Mitchell travels to Brookings (17-2).

“We won’t show everything (at Brookings),” Hohn said. “We’ve got a couple things that we want to do in the tournament alone.”

The state tournament for the girls takes place March 2-4 in Aberdeen.

Tags: sports, updates, marlins, hockey