DULUTH — Late in the second period with Grand Rapids/Greenway on a power play, the puck hopped over a Lightning stick and Duluth’s Adell Wormuth picked it up and raced toward the net.
It wasn’t a great situation for GRG goalie Riley Toivonen, but she skated out to meet Wormuth and try to stop the breakaway. Wormuth fired off a shot past Toivonen for a shorthanded score and cut the Lightning lead to 5-2.
GRG coach Brad Hyduke admitted Toivonen probably “wanted that one back,” but there was plenty to be happy about.
“What I liked about it was she was aggressive,” Hyduke said. “She came out right away — there was no hesitation. It was just kind of how she played it, it blew up a little bit.”
Even with the goal, the Lightning had little trouble with the Northern Stars in a 6-2 win Tuesday at the Essentia Duluth Heritage Sports Center.
What’s more, Toivonen has been excellent in goal this season, posting a 1.45 goals against average and a .927 save percentage through 11 games.
After sitting behind Kenzie Cole (now at St. Scholastica) as a freshman and sophomore, Toivonen was in a “platoon” situation with another goalie, according to Hyduke, but she earned the starting position this season with a shutout win over Blaine in the Section 7AA semifinals in February.
While Toivonen is in the midst of an outstanding season for the Lightning, she’s already made some history this year.
A soccer player for her first three years of high school, Toivonen planned not to play her senior season, but she still wanted to play a sport in the fall.
“My dad was a football coach for lots of years and he told me, ‘You should play football,’” Toivonen said. “I was like, ‘You know what, why not? Let’s do it.’”
She started thinking about playing last spring and there were some skeptics among some of the students.
Photo courtesy of Greg Spahn
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