By John Clement / Sports Reporter / St. Cloud, Minn.

-The Class 1A Section 6 semifinals came to the MAC last night. The #1 seed St. Cloud Crush vs the #4 seed Northern Lakes Lightning.The game started out with the Crush on their heels for the first 9 minutes even with 

the Lightning’s Natalie Stueven taking a slashing minor at 11:21, and the agressive skating allowed the lightning to kill off the penalty. The game and momentum changed at 7:57 of the period when Reese Ruska skated into the offensive zone, sidestepped 2 defenders and buried her shot in the back of the net to give the Crush a 1-0 lead with Ella Gebhardt getting the assist on the goal to end the period 1-0

The second was all Crush, with goals at 16:03 from Liz Bell assisted by Ella Gebhardt and Reeghan Stevens, at 6:22 Ruska buried her second goal of the game unassisted on another spectacular show of stick handling and at 4:12 Reeghan Stevens got in on the goal scoring assisted by Ella Gebhardt giving the Crush a 4-0 lead heading into the final period.

The third period began with the first penalty for the home team at 16:16 when Reeghan Stevens was sent to the box for a 2-minute interference minor and the Lightning only managed about 20 – 25 seconds of O time, the majority of the penalty kill was played in the Lightnings end with the only shot on goal being for the Crush. at 10:05 Stevens made up for the penalty by scoring her 2nd goal with an assist from Jayden Layne and at 2:28 Josie Longnecker scored off of the 4th assist for Ella Gebhardt on the night and Aubree Schueller.Top performersJordan Bovy stopped all 20 shots she faced improving her GAA to 1.66, she has saved .945% of the shots she faced this season and scored her 5th shutout of the year.Reese Ruska’s 2 goals take her to 22 for the season, along with 19 assists for a team leading 41 points Reeghan Stevens 2 goals and an assist get her to 16 goals and 14 assists and next in line with 30 points for the season.

Liz Bell’s goal lifts her to 3rd in points on the team with 27Ella Gebhardt’s 4 assists in the game along with her 3 goals take her to 4h on the team with 18 points on the season.The Crush move to the final game of the section playoffs where they will face the #2 seed Fergus Falls Otters who beat the Sartell / Sauk Rapids Stormin Sabres 6-3 in the other game last night. The two teams will face off in Alexandria at the Runestone Community Center Thursday February 12th at 7:00 pm