November has been a big month of growth for the Austin Bruins and they showed how far they have come when faced with some adversity against the Coulee Region Chill (6-8-1-5 overall). The Bruins were able to kill off a seven-minute Chill power play late in the game to hold on and win 5-2 in Riverside Arena Friday night.
The win is fourth straight for Austin (10-6-1-3 overall), which has won six of seven games in November.
The Chill were just one-for-five on power plays and Austin scored its first goal short handed as Xander Lamppa converted a quick turnover into a score to make it 1-0 just eight minutes into the game.

“We pride ourselves on special teams and especially on our PK,” Bruins defenseman Lane Krenzen said. “We know got some guys on the back end that can sell out and block shots. Our communication is coming on a lot and it’s almost come to the point where you know were guys are going to be without even talking to them.”
Austin took a 4-1 lead in the second period when Andy Willis scored his eight goal of the season and Chase Pilawski scored his first career goal as a Bruin. But the Chill had all of the momentum late in the third when Tyler Ebner scored on a five-on-three power play to make it 4-2 and the Chill had another five minutes left on the power play after Austin’s Benito Posa, who had scored in the first period, was called for a seven minutes worth of penalties for instigating and fighting.
“We obviously didn’t want to go down for that long,” Austin head coach Steve Howard said. “I know Benito thought the guy was going to go with him, but it’s a learning process. It’s Benito’s first year and he’s going to learn you can’t drop the gloves and start swinging unless the guy drops his gloves.”
Austin dominated those five minutes by barely allowing a shot and it iced the game when Travis Koethenbeutel netted his third point of the night and his 100th as a Bruin on an empty net goal with 1:03 left in the game.

Koethenbeutel said the last month has been a big one for Austin.
“Guys are starting to click together and everyone’s coming together,” he said. “Hopefully we can keep it going and it’ll be a fun year.”
Howard likes how his team has been playing, but he knows the road ahead will be tough in a very competitive Central Division.
“The guys are playing really well and we want to keep this ball rolling,” Howard said. “The first six games [of the season] were all tight games and being the youngest team in the league, they had to figure out how to win. It’s nice that we’re doing it right now. The tough part is to keep it going.”
Mads Sogaard had 23 saves for the Bruins to pick up his sixth win of the season. He is now 6-2-1 overall.
SCORING SUMMARY
Coulee 0 1 1 – 2
Austin 2 2 1 – 5
First period
(A) Xander Lamppa (short handed) (Jaden Shields) 8:12
(A) Benito Posa (Andy Willia, Valdemar Ahlberg) 19:07
Second period
(C) Marshall Plunkett (Tomas Vochozka, Matt Hines) :25
(A) Willis (Travis Kothenbeutel, Chase Pilawski) (power play) 14:01
(A) Pilawski (Kothenbetuel, Evan Cholak) (power play) 15:20
Third period
(C) Tyler Ebner (Andrew McGlynn) power play) 12:07
(A) Kothenbeutel (empty net) 18:57
Shots: Austin – 30; Coulee – 25
Power plays: Austin – 2-for-6; Coulee – 1-for-5