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5-goal outings by Dietrich, Domagala pace Cardinals

By Mark HaugenCombine the scoring of seniors Sadie Dietrich and Natalie Domagala with the stellar goaltending of Sarah Schneekloth and the wins start coming.The Luverne girls added two more last week, beating Sioux Falls Blue 7-4 Thursday night and Southwest Conference foe Windom 8-1 on Tuesday night. Dietrich and Domagala each had a five-goal night.The Cardinals are now 6-3 overall and 2-0 in the conference. They play at Mankato West on Saturday and at Marshall on Tuesday.Luverne 8, Windom 1Coach Dave Siebenahler wasn’t too pleased with his team’s performance in the first two periods as Luverne managed a 2-1 lead, but the third period was a different story.Domagala knocked home a short-handed goal, with an assist by Dietrich, to open Luverne’s scoring at 5:32 of the first. Dietrich then scored the first of what would be five goals at the 6:14 mark of the second. Windom came back two minutes later and pulled within 2-1 with a powerplay goal.After the second period break, Luverne came out firing and notched six goals, including a streak of three within seven minutes. Domagala added two more and Dietrich closed out the barrage with an unassisted goal with 38 seconds left.Dietrich, with her five goals, also had two assists. Schneekloth stopped 40 shots on goal. Luverne 7, SF Blue 4In a rematch of a 5-3 mid-November loss, the Cardinals showed the Sioux Falls Flyers an improved version of themselves and skated to the win.Luverne’s Natalie Domagala turned a hat trick in the first period on her way to five goals on the night, along with two assists. Sioux Falls had an answer for each of Domagala’s first two goals, but she broke the tie on an assist from Amanda Niessink with 13 seconds left in the first. Then with one tick left on the clock, Sadie Dietrich gave the Cardinals a boost with her unassisted goal and a 4-2 lead.Domagala added two more goals in the second period, with an assist each from Dietrich on a powerplay and from Natalie Morgan.Stephanie Steensma capped Luverne’s scoring with a powerplay assist from Domagala at the 11:54 mark in the third. Sioux Falls managed two third period games to make the score respectable. Sarah Schneekloth stopped 17 shots in net for Luverne."The girls really picked it up. They really wanted to get back at Sioux Falls and show them that we were a better team than they showed them before," Siebenahler said. "The girls came out ready to play and seemed like they really wanted to win."Benson/Morris 3, Luverne 2 OTThe Cardinals’ five-game win streak was snapped as B/M hit a shot with 3:25 remaining in overtime on Saturday.Schneekloth was tough in the net all night long as the Luverne eighth-grader stopped 48 shots. She had a shutout through the first two periods.Domagala, smothered on defense all night, managed a goal in the first and a goal in the third."We just came out flat and didn’t play very well the whole game, butt Sarah Schneekloth played awesome," Siebenahler said. "They put a lot of pressure on Natalie and she couldn’t get into the flow of the game and that set the tone."

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