ST. PAUL, Minn. – The Concordia-St. Paul Rocket League team (2-7) closed out the group stage of the NACE Fall Rocket League Championship on a high note as they swept Morningside (2-8) on Thursday night.
The Golden Bears built some momentum going into next week's single-elimination bracket play as they picked up their second sweep of the season. CSP set the tone in game one with the largest victory in program history with a 7-0 win before taking game two 5-1 and game three 4-2.
Phung Khang continued her run as the focal point of the Golden Bear offense as she matched her career best with eight goals in the series. Her four goals in game two set the CSP single-game record while she also became the first player to record two hat-tricks in the same night. She added three saves and an assist on the night.
While Khang put up a star performance, it was an all-around team effort as all four players scored in the series.
David Voelker filled the stat sheet with four goals and four assists in just two games while
Rocket Robertson registered his first career goal as a part of a three-goal, four-night effort.
Nordell Brooks added a goal and an assist in his lone game as well.
Concordia wasted little time building an edge in the opening game as they scored three early goals before continuing to add to the lead throughout. Khang collected her first hat-trick of the night with her third goal of the game with 49 seconds to play while Voelker capped off his own 18 seconds later. Voelker also tallied two assists in the game as his five points were a single-game program best.
Khang kept the momentum going in the second game as she scored the first four goals of the game to give CSP a commanding 4-0 lead heading into the final minute of play. The Mustangs picked up their first goal of the night with 27 seconds left, but Voelker pushed the lead back to four with an insurance goal with 12 seconds to go to bring it to the final score of 5-1.
It was Morningside who struck first in game three as they opened the scoring at the 3:47 mark before CSP tied it up with a Robertson goal just over a minute later. The Mustangs regained the lead just past the midway point of the period at the 2:29 mark, but that lead proved to last just seven seconds as Khang quickly evened the score again. Brooks then delivered the eventual game-winner with 1:34 left on the clock before Robertson added another to give CSP the sweep with a 4-2 win.
The Golden Bears now will await their opponent in the opening round of the single-elimination tournament this coming Monday.
