Photo by Jake Przytarski Marshall’s Regan Loft controls the puck during their game against Prairie Centre on Tuesday. The Tigers defeated the Blue Devils 7-1.

MARSHALL — The Marshall girls hockey team unleashed a 51-minute offensive onslaught in Tuesday’s home-opener against Prairie Centre that culminated in three different Tigers recording multiple goals in a 7-1 victory over the Blue Devils.

Reflecting on the team’s first win of the season, coach Cassi Weiss was especially pleased with the poise shown by her team throughout the contest.

“I think we never gave up. We skated hard the whole time and when things got a little disasterous we kind of just took a deep breath and then spread out, played our positions and just kind of got back to our game,” said Weiss.

It took only three minutes for the Tigers to find the back of the net in the first period of Tuesday’s matchup as freshman Regan Loft opened the scoring with Tessa Gannott picking up the lone assist. Loft went on to add a second goal in the second period.

Loft said she was thrilled to see the puck go in for the first time this season and credits her teammates for assisting on her two goals.

“I was just really happy because it’s only my second year and that was my second-ever goal,” said Loft. “It feels really good to just have a great team too that helped me with assists.”

Marshall’s skaters remained buzzing around the Blue Devils’ defensive zone following the early tally and picked up a second goal minutes later when senior captain Logan Sherman uncorked a booming slapshot near the blue line that found twine. The goal was her first of two in the game, both coming by way of the slap shot.

After struggling to breakthrough on the scoreboard in their previous game against Hutchinson, Weiss acknowledged the fact that the two early goals provided a boost of confidence for her team.

“It definitely helps. It definitely lifts the spirits, gets rid of the nerves a little bit then you kind of settle down after that so it definitely helps a lot,” said Weiss.

The Tigers would take a 2-0 lead into the first intermission before adding two additional goals by Kaitlyn Timm on assists by Emelia Barker and Kayta Waltz to strengthen their lead to 4-0. Following Loft and Sherman’s tallies to close the period, Marshall held a comfortable 6-0 lead into the final intermission.

Timm would put an exclamation point on the convincing victory in the opening minute of the third period with an impressive solo effort to notch the team’s seventh goal and complete the hat trick.

Following Prairie Centre’s lone goal coming later on in the period, the Tigers were able to go on the power play twice and nearly added an eighth goal with multiple quality scoring chances and strong puck movement.

“Our power play did a really good job,” said Weiss. “That’s the first time we’ve gotten to actually run our power play in a game so it was fun to watch them kind of be a little creative and see what they could come up with. They had a lot of good chances.”

The Tigers also killed off all three of the Blue Devils power plays coming in the first and second periods to remain a perfect 4 for 4 on the penalty kill this season.

“On our penalty kill we were keeping the puck down in their zone and had a couple of breakaways so I was really proud of the way that we worked,” Weiss said.

Emma Klenken earned the victory in goal for the Tigers, stopping nine shots.

Marshall will look to build off its win with another strong showing on Thursday on the road against Willmar at 7:15 p.m. Weiss hopes to see the team carry over its strong play into that matchup.

“We talked a lot about our momentum in the third period,” said Weiss. “We have to keep it up because that’s going to roll right into Thursday. I think they did a good job of that.”

Marshall 7, Prairie Centre 1

Marshall 2 4 1 — 7

Prairie Centre 0 0 1 — 1

First Period

SCORING

Marshall: Loft, 3:14 (Gannott).

Marshall: Sherman 6:33 (Ormberg).

PENALTIES

Marshall: Ormberg, 8:16 (Tripping, 2 min).

Second Period

SCORING

Marshall: Timm, 6:56 (Barker)

Marshall: Timm, 10:40 (Barker, Waltz)

Marshall: Loft, 15:26 (Barker)

Marshall: Sherman, 16:57 (Ormberg)

PENALTIES

Marshall: Gannott, 11:29 (Hooking, 2 min).

Marshall: Timm, 13:53 (Tripping, 2 min)

Third Period

SCORING

Marshall: Timm, 0:37 (Unassisted)

Prairie Centre: Cebulla (Bick, Nedoroscik)

PENALTIES

Prairie Centre: Och, 6:58 (Interference, 2 min).

Prairie Centre: Nedoroscik, 12:41 (Tripping, 2 min).