The Austin Bruins dug themselves in a hole they couldn’t dig out of as they trailed by as many as six goals in a 7-3 loss to the first place Minot Minotauros in Riverside Arena Friday.

Austin (5-6-1 overall) out-shot Minot (9-2-2 overall) 35-26, but the Minotauros scored two quick goals at the end of the first period and Minot added four straight goals in a nine-minute stretch to start the second period.

“I think the start was great. It’s just the last five minutes of the first period we started getting away from what was giving us success early on,” Austin assistant coach Keenan Kelly said. “When you give up so many goals and you’re outshooting them by so much, obviously it’s frustrating.”

Logan Haskins, Justin Misiak and Travis Kothenbeutel all scored in the loss for Austin.

Alex Schilling stopped two of the six shots he saw in net for Austin and Jake Kucharski stopped 17 of the 20 shots he saw.

“We didn’t help out our goal tenders enough,” Kelly said. “At the end of the day, I think we set the tone for tomorrow by winning the third period. We kind of gave it to them a little bit in the third period and we took the ownership of our barn.”

SCORING SUMMARY

Austin 2  5  0  —  7

Minot 0  2  1  —  3

First period

(M) Michael Talbot (Chase Springman, Jack Murphy) 14:00

(M) Zach Bross (Jake Dittel, Tyler Jeanson) (power play) 17:21

Second period

(M) Tyler Jeanson (Nate Pionk) :30

(M) Talbot (Murphy) 1:38

(M) Alex Adams (Reid Stefanson, Derek Frentz) 5:10

(M) Murphy (Nolan Sawchuk, Jake Dittel) 9:01

(A) Logan Haskins 10:10

(A) Justin Misiak (Jon Richards) (power play) 13:01

(M) Murphy 15:02

Third period

Travis Kothenbeutel (Richards) 5:55

Shots: Austin — 35; Minot — 26

Power plays: Austin — 2-for-4; Minot — 1-for-9