Americans beat Nationals in Great Falls

Most weekends, the Glacier Nationals have at least two opportunities to get into the winner's circle. But this past weekend, the Nationals only had one game scheduled and for the ninth-straight time, they were unable to get in the win column.

Of course a win would have been a tremendous achievement with the Nationals having to travel to Great Falls Saturday to take on the Americans, the top team in the Frontier Division of the North American Tier 3 Hockey League. Glacier fought hard and made the game competitive, but in the end, the Americans rolled to an 8-2 victory.

The loss dropped the Nationals' record on the season to 2-14-2, which puts them in a tie for last place with the Billings Bulls. Both teams have six points. Great Falls, on the other hand, managed to maintain its hold on first place with a victory that improved its record to 14-5 on the season.

Like many of Glacier's defeats this season, one of the big themes from Saturday's game was the fact that the Americans outshot the Nationals at a rate of three to one. And no matter who is in net, if you face 42 more shots than your opponent, you are going to struggle.

In the first period, the Americans fired a ridiculous 23 shot attempts at Glacier goalie Raymond Smith and beat him for goals three times. The first two scores came at the hands of Tegan Harrington, who scored four minutes into the game and then again with just under three minutes left to play in the first period. Mitchell Ramstad scored again with 11 seconds before intermission to make the score 3-0 in favor of Great Falls.

In the second period, Ramstad scored his second consecutive goal just 2:35 into the frame, which pushed the Americans lead to 4-0. Yet, Glacier wouldn't quit and finally built some positive momentum as Kevin Kittleson scored back-to-back goals in less than two minutes to make the score 4-2. Adam Apangalook scored just 1:09 left in the second to give Great Falls a 5-2 advantage entering the third period.

If the Nationals had any hopes of a comeback in the third, they were ended quickly as Brendan Jester scored just 38 seconds into the stanza to give Great Falls a four-goal advantage at 6-2. The Americans would tack on two more goals before the game was over and ended up with the 8-2 victory.

Kevin Hale earned the win for the Americans with 19 saves and two goals allowed. Smith finished the game with an impressive 55 saves. But after facing 63 shots, that meant allowing eight goals to the opposing team.

The Nationals and Americans will have a quick turnaround before facing each other again this Friday night in the Havre Ice Dome. First puck drops at 8 p.m. Then, the Nationals will travel to Helena to take on the Big Horns Saturday at 7:05 p.m.