Mercurial Hengen leads Holy Angels mission
Junior center Billy Hengen, one of the state’s truly elite players, has scored a ton of goals and racked up at least as many assists for Holy Angels, but because of an oversight he didn’t even get credit for what might be the biggest assist of his high school career.
The Holy Angels Stars, a big team put together at a tiny private school in Richfield, had just seen a 3-1 lead shrink to 3-2 against Bloomington Jefferson in the Section 5AA championship game at Mariucci Arena last Wednesday night. Having outplayed, outscored and outshot the Jaguars to that point, Holy Angels was back on its heals, and coach Greg Trebil called a timeout with 37 seconds left.
Again the Jaguars came on, and the Stars and goaltender Justin Eddy held on as the tournament-hardened Jaguars pulled goalie Erik Anderson to attack with six skaters. Hengen won a faceoff in his own end, but Holy Angels missed the open net and was called for icing with 7.4 seconds showing. This time Jefferson coach Tom Saterdalen took time out, and prepared the Jags for a final attempt at the equalizer.
With a faceoff in the corner to the left of goalie Eddy, Hengen snatched the puck back on the faceoff, getting it cleanly to defenseman Ryan LaMere, who, without hesitation, fired a 150-foot bullet that skipped into the middle of the empty net with 3 seconds to go.
The goal clinched a 4-2 victory and sent Holy Angels to the first state tournament in its history.
“Definitely that was the biggest draw I’ve ever won,” said Hengen. “That was the second one we had in our end, and this time when Ryan shot it, I kept saying, ‘Get in! Get in!’ That was definitely our biggest win in school history. Everybody played a role and we played smart hockey.”
Hengen didn’t care about missing the assist, having scored a goal and a brilliant assist on a 2-on-1, on which he carried in on the right side, lured the defenseman and the goaltender, then fed back to the slot where Tyler Howells had a tap-in for the 3-1 lead.
There is a chance for Holy Angels to be the Cinderella team of Class AA in the boys state hockey tournament. But not among those who have watched the school grow by attracting top players, and flourish as a state hockey power. Although they played mostly Class A teams, scheduled from their days at that level, they scrimmaged a lot of the best Class AA teams while cruising through the season undefeated until being upset by Red Wing two weeks from the end of regular season.
Undaunted, the Stars roared back and beat Eastview in the first round of 5AA, then surprised a lot of observers in the semifinals by eliminating Eagan, the top-seeded team that had beaten powerful Hastings twice. But there would be no surprising Jefferson in the final. The Jaguars did not have one of their traditionally dominant seasons, but a half dozen players from the Jefferson area had transfered to Holy Angels during the three years under coach Greg Trebil, who had coached Jefferson’s junior high prospects as Bantams for 15 years.
The victory required some tough saves among the 23 recorded by Justin Eddy, a senior who handled the pressure routinely.
“This was big for me, but bigger for all my teammates who came from Bloomington,” said Eddy. “I came from Rosemount. But we all wanted to prove something to everybody.”
Trebil’s son, Dan, played defense at Minnesota and is now playing pro hockey, and his younger son, Ryan, is currently with the Gophers, after coming through the potent Jefferson program. He left to prove himself as a coach at the high school level.
“This is our third year, and our intention all along was to play Double-A,” said Trebil. “We had 13 scrimmages against AA teams, but as soon as we got started, we’ve attracted a lot of good young kids.”
The best is Hengen, whose grandfather was former Minneapolis Star columnist Bill Hengen. He is a quick, darting skater, an excellent stickhandler and passer, and he can score. He came from Lino Lakes and the Centennial High School area, when his family moved to Eden Prairie. He’s a 4.0 student, Trebil said, and a “big-time hockey player.”
Hengen centers Adam Kaiser, one of the Jefferson transfers, and Tyler Howells, who came from Edgewood, Colo. “We’ve been together pretty much all year,” said Hengen. “We all share the puck and ther are no selfish players on the line.”
Trebil noted that one challenge was to overcome the feeling of past years, dating back to the era before Holy Angels went “big time.”
“The program had not been real good, so it required a process of getting the playes to believe in themselves,” said Trebil. “As the season progressed, each boy seemed to believe more and more, and we built some momentum from each game.”
The momentum was stalled when, despite a 21-1 record, the Stars were seeded fourth, behind Eagan, Jefferson, and Burnsville. Trebil turned that slight into a motivational weapon. “We were seeded fourth with only one loss all season, but I told the boys I didn’t disagree with the seeding,” said Trebil. “We had to beat some of those teams seeded ahead of us to prove ourselves. We were really nervous before the first playoff game against Eastview, but once we got going, the jitters went away.”
Along with Kaiser, players who moved from Jefferson to Holy Angels include four senior defensemen — LaMere, Matt Logan, Mike Reierson and Rod Wimberly.
LaMere scored two goals in the pivotal victory over the Jaguars, with an unassisted marker in the first period along with his long bomb into the empty net.
A key to the Stars success is Eddy, who went out with partially torn abdominal ligaments on Jan.14. He was expected to be out as long as eight weeks, but as a senior determined to play, Eddy came back in four weeks, just in time to start the first sectional game. But carefully.
“I pulled it against Hutchinson with about five minutes left,” recalled Eddy. “I turned and pushed off, and I strained some ligaments in my pelvic area. I had a lot of physical therapy, but it was really weird in my first game back. We were playing Eastview, which is from Rosemount, the area I came from in eighth grade.
“I didn’t feel good at all right up until that first playoff game, but once I hit the ice, I felt fine. And I haven’t had any concerns since.”
The same could be said for the whole team.
Welch, Taffe trigger explosive Hastings offense
It was no surprise that Hastings won the Section 2 title with ease to gain a return trip to the Class AA state tournament. It also won’t be a surprise if Hastings wins the state championship Saturday night.
It will be a surprise if someone other than Dan Welch or Jeff Taffe wins the Mr. Hockey award on Sunday as the best senior hockey player in Minnesota.
Either of the two could turn a mediocre team into a power, having them on the same team is doubly impressive, and having them on the same line makes both of them better in combination than either can be alone, and gives Hastings a clearcut advantage in scoring punch.
Both Taffe, a tall, rangy centerman, and Welch, a strong-skating winger with an explosive shot, have accepted scholarships to play at the University of Minnesota next fall and have been the highest-profile pair in the state all season because of their play on last year’s state tournament entry and the attendant publicity of their early-signing with the Gophers. On top of that, defenseman Ben Tharp also is committed to Minnesota, meaning that the Raiders consist of more than just the dynamic duo on their top line.
But that line — with Taffe centering Welch and Nick Husting — will command viewers’ attention when Hastings and Blaine put matching 21-4 records on the line in Thursday’s 9:45 p.m. finale to the Class AA first round of tournament games at Target Center.
Taffe (pronounced “TAfe” with a long “A” and wearing No. 22) has scored 38-48–86, and Welch (wearing No. 23) has tallied 32-47–79. Slight as that disparity is, it wouldn’t exist except that Welch missed four games playing for the U.S. select team over Christmas break.
When the coach compares the two, he refers to them as “Taffe and Welch,” which is interesting, because the coach is Russ Welch, Dan’s father.
“If I was asked for a scouting report on the two,” said Russ, “I’d say Welch has explosive speed, great strength and a hard shot, and sees the rink extremely well; Taffe has great hands, great patience, and sees the rink extremely well, with a shot that is nearly as hard as Welch’s, and probably more accurate.”
Coach Welch, however, is quick to applaud the supporting cast. Tharp has 3-32–35 from defense, he said, “but the rest of our 11 players all have scored between 17 and 30 points. All of ’em.”
All three lines are quick, and the defense has been solid, while junior goaltender Matt Klein has moved in and taken the No. 1 job, with a 13-2 record and a 1.55 goals-against and an .884 save percentage.
Hastings plays in an otherwise weak conference and section, but nobody questions their scoring punch, which is unexcelled among tournament teams. The big question, in fact, was how the Raiders managed to lose four games. The answer was a little indifference and some scattered play through the first half of the season.
Duluth East whipped Hastings something like 7-3 and Greenway of Coleraine tied the Raiders 4-4 in preseason scrimmages that indicated those problems. An early loss to Eagan stung, and a midseason loss to Eden Prairie provided a slap in the face. Then it was a trip to the DECC, and a showdown against an East team that had strung out a 10-game winning streak that turned the Raiders around.
“What woke us up was losing to Eden Prairie,” said Welch. “We had ’em down 5-2 with six minutes left, and we lost 6-5. That woke us up a little, and then we played Duluth East.”
At the DECC, East jumped ahead 2-0, which may have been the final slap required to snap Hastings into clear focus. The Raiders roared back for six straight goals and a 6-3 triumph. East coach Mike Randolph said, at the time: “I don’t know who could have beaten ’em today. I got caught watching ’em, too. We know they’re an excellent hockey team, but we haven’t gotten our rear ends kicked like that in the DECC since I’ve been here.”
Now, after suffering losses to Hill-Murray and Elk River as well as being eliminated in Section 7AA by Elk River, Randolph says he thinks Hastings, on that day, was the best team he saw all season.
“All I know is that was the best game we had played all year to that point,” said Welch. “And we never looked back.”
Obviously. The Raiders returned to the Twin Cities and obliterated their final eight regular-season opponents, scoring 82 goals in those games for an average of over 10 goals per game. That, in fact, was the figure they recorded in a 10-0 opening game in Section 2, before things got serious and they beat St. Paul Johnson 4-1 and Cretin-Derham Hall 4-0, in a final that saw a 42-12 edge in shots for the Raiders, but neither Welch nor Taffe scored.
That dropoff in the last two games still puts the Raiders at nine goals per game over their last 12 games, which could mean that Blaine is in for a long night Thursday. Welch, of course, is much too cautious to predict such a thing.
“Blaine is quick and has big defense that play steady, and goaltending that is above average,” said Welch. “I think it’s a wide-open tournament. Six of the eight AA teams were No. 1 seeds in their sections, and the other two, Holy Angels and Eden Prairie, are very good teams.”
All very true. But seven of the teams would be vastly improved if their lineup included a couple of forwards named Welch and Taffe.
A Tribute to tournament memories
A TRIBUTE TO THE HOCKEY TOURNAMENT
Print courtesy of Terrence Fogarty Studio
Anyone who ever played in or witnessed a high school tournament at the St. Paul Civic Center will cherish the memories of many great games, as well as the vast expansiveness, the unique clear-glass sideboards, and the spoke-wheel ceiling of the facility itself. The Civic Center is gone now, but the memories have been captured in an amazingly detailed limited-edition painting named “Tribute,” by Terrence Fogarty. Only part of the panoramic 35-inch-wide print is reproduced here, depicting an array of players from teams of different eras. Prints of “Tribute” and numerous other hockey scenes can be obtained from Terrence Fogarty Studio, 6120 Oren Av. N., Stillwater, Minn., 55082, (651) 351-1452.
Slow-starting Hawks take flight for state
The Hermantown Hawks made quite a splash last year, reaching the Class A tournament, upsetting favorite Red Wing, and losing only to Eveleth-Gilbert in the championship game.
Coach Bruce Plante enjoyed the ride, but he wondered about the follow-up this season.
“We had lost 13 players from that team, and we had some skilled forwards like Jon Francisco back, but J.R. Bradley was our only returning defenseman,” said Plante. “I knew we’d be good at the top, and be able to put out five players as good as anybody, but we had so many ‘ifs’ I didn’t know how this team would be.”
The “ifs” were answered early, and the Hawks have stormed through an even more-impressive season — beating Duluth East for the first time in school history, winning their first-ever Lake Superior Conference title, and returning to the state tournament with a glistening 21-3-1 record.
The Hawks have it all: an exceptional first line, a surprisingly productive second line, a flaky-but-effective goaltender in Allen S. Knowles, perhaps the largest “secret weapon” in the state in defenseman J.R. Bradley, a 6-3, 215-pounder, and a tenacious and underrated supporting cast of role-players.
In fact, while Hermantown is the Up North favorite, the only thing preventing the Hawks from being the clearcut favorite is Benilde-St. Margaret’s — the 23-2 team that not only is the “southern” favorite to win it all, but also is the team the Hawks face in Wednesday’s 7:05 p.m. first-round game at Target Center.
“I scouted them the other night, and they’re good,” said Plante. “Their first line is good, but their whole team is good. In a way, I thought I was seeing a mirror-image of our team. They play up-tempo, and pretty physical. They do use their first line a lot. In their section final against Totino-Grace, I think they had that first line out for 13 of the 15 minutes.
“Our first line is well-conditioned, and we’ll try to go head-to-head with theirs, and that will be the showdown. That’s what’s most impressive about our first line, is we always have them go up against the other team’s best line.”
The challenge of stopping state scoring leader Troy Riddle and the Red Knights first unit is a worthy one, but Hermantown’s first line has been dominant at both ends of the ice. Jon Francisco, who accepted a scholarship to UMD but will first play a year in the USHL, has 29 goals, 34 assists for 63 points and centers fellow-senior Andy Corran (20-29–49) and junior Chris Baron (11-21–32).
“Everybody looks at our first line, but our second line got three of the four goals in our Section 2A final against Pine City,” said Plante.
That would be a goal apiece for freshman center B.J. Radovich and wingers Loren Kaake and Clint VanIseghem, a pair of productive seniors. For the season, Radovich has 14-18–32, VanIseghem 12-13–25, and Kaake, a respectable 10-7–17, made far more than respectable by the fact he scored his fifth goal to clinch the 4-2 victory over Duluth East, and he scored the Hawks first goal in each playoff game.
In goal, Knowles had given Plante some preseason cause for concern. “He’s kind of a flighty kid, and I didn’t know if he’d be responsible enough,” said the coach. “He’s been wonderful. He’s handled the pressure well, but he’s still a little flighty. The kids get him revved up easy by teasing him, and they’re always teasing him about something, but they love him and they play hard for him. It helps that Jon Francisco is his buddy, because Jon is just the opposite, taking care of every detail and making sure everything is in place.”
The victory over East was a huge turning point for the Hawks, but an even bigger one might have been when Plante took the team to the Twin Cities to scrimmage Eden Prairie and Bloomington Jefferson, a pair of traditional powers in AA. “We did well against both of them, and that did a world of good for our confidence,” said Plante. “That helped us when we got up against East.”
No question, however, the team’s biggest turning point was getting Bradley back from a lengthy bout with mononucleosis. He went out after playing one game, and the Hawks were 7-2-1 without him, and may have benefitted from forcing younger defensemen to step up immediately.
“People don’t realize, J.R. was really sick,” said Plante. “He was off skates for seven weeks, and most of that time he was out of school, home in bed. When he came back, he was weak, and he probably shouldn’t have played right away. We lost that game to Proctor, and while it took him a half-dozen games to get back to normal, we’ve gone 13-0 since then.”
One of the big surprises is that in an era when pro and college scouts seem to go overboard trying to enlist the services of any player with decent size, regardless of their hockey sophistication or skating ability, nobody has made a concrete offer to Bradley — a 6-3 player who has recovered most of his lost weight by now, is an excellent skater, bold and confident with the puck, and loves to jolt foes with heavy hits.
“I really don’t know why Division I colleges and junior teams haven’t come after him with solid offers,” said Plante. “He’s the real deal. About his only liability is that he sometimes tries to do too much and might get in trouble stickhandling, but that’s only because he’s so confident he thinks he can do anything. I think it’s really great for him that we’ve made it to state, so everybody can see him at his best.”
The loss of Bradley for 10 games didn’t exactly enhance Plante’s early-season planning, but it may have paid off in the long run. “With J.R. our only returning defenseman, I moved Jesse Stokke, a junior who played second line right wing with Corran and Baron last year, back to defense,” Plante said. “Stokke is an awesome skater, and he helped out right away.
“And the minute I saw how good Danny Knapp was, as a sophomore right up from Bantams with Radovich, I realized we were going to have three outstanding defensemen from the start. Steve Henry, another sophomore, has come on to be solid as a fourth.”
With Bradley back, the Hawks will open with him and Knapp on one unit, while Stokke and Henry make up the second.
“We like to play six defensemen and three lines, although our third line doesn’t score a lot,” said Plante. “And I don’t know how much we’ll be able to use them against Benilde.”
After last year, and the struggle of Bradley to get healthy, and then skate his way back into condition, it took awhile for Plante to be able to fully assess this team.
“This team is better than last year,” he said. “This team has more skill at the top, because Jon Francisco was our best player last year, and he’s back and better this year. And the way our other players have improved, and our younger players have come in, we’re a hard team to play against. Everybody plays hard, and we don’t usually give up more than 14-20 shots, with not many good chances.”
The road to the championship, and the pride Up North, requires an opening-game showdown. Plante, always calm and in control, is concerned that the Hawks have started each playoff game slowly because of nervousness, and had to build up to their best tempo. He realizes that could be fatal against Benilde. But things have gone so well for the Hawks this season, the coach has to have something to be nervous about too.
Elks focus now on Martin, state tournament
Three of the favorites for Sunday’s Mr. Hockey award are in the lower bracket of this week’s Class AA boys hockey tournament — Hastings stars Dan Welch and Jeff Taffe, and Hill-Murray’s Matt Koalska.
Elk River doesn’t have a Mr. Hockey finalist for one reason, because Martin is only a junior. But there are those observers who think that Martin might be the best player in the state right now.
Several very good Class AA hockey teams in the Up North region are still feeling the sting, but they have to grudgingly acknowledge that whether they should be in Section 7AA or not, Elk River, from the northwestern Twin Cities suburb next to Anoka, is the 7AA representative at this week’s state tournament.
The Elks always attract attention for their hard-charging style and tireless work ethic, and sometimes for colorful outbursts by coach Tony Sarsland, and his snakeskin boots. But as teams Up North painfully learned, the focus of attention on this year’s Elk team is Martin, a tall, lanky defenseman, who spends almost all of every game on the ice and making sure the Elks come out on top.
Martin got only one assist in the last two games, when the Elks beat defending state Class AA champion Duluth East in a 4-2 Section 7AA semifinal at the DECC, and beat Hibbing in a 2-1 triple-overtime classic in the 7AA final in Hibbing. But he was the dominant performer in both games, blocking shots, breaking up rushes, and swift and efficient as he broke the puck out of the Elk zone and generated most of their offensive rushes.
As the Elks skate onto the Target Center ice sheet for Thursday’s first round, the focus of attention will be on No. 15, Martin. It’s doubtful Martin can spend as much time on the ice as he did through the Section 7AA tournament, but with the Elks facing Hill-Murray, then possibly Hastings, you can look for Martin to be on the ice more than on the bench.
“Martin is the best player in high school hockey,” said Sarsland. “We thought about playing him up front this season, but in my opinion he’s the best defenseman in the state.”
What has become unfortunately typical of high school hockey these days, USA Hockey tries to encourage areas to develop players like Martin, then USA Hockey tries to lure them away to their elite program in Ann Arbor, despite the devastating blow it delivers to the hometown high school.
“I’ve thought about it,” said Martin. “I know that if I went there, I would improve my game from the longer season. But it’s so much more fun in high school in Minnesota.”
Sarsland, who gave his blessing for Martin to leave the high school team and fill in on the USA Select team for a trip to the Czech Republic a month ago, is confident his prize will stay at home.
“We let him go on that trip, and we know he could go to Ann Arbor or to the USHL next season, and he could get more games, no question. But there are things more valuable to him,” said Sarsland. “He’s a three-sport star. He’s a wide receiver in football, and plays first base in baseball. Not only that, he ran track last spring.”
State tournament attention, and the play of Martin, are a welcome relief for the Elks, who have come to be looked upon as the state’s villains for being assigned to far-flung sections and prevent other good teams from making it to state. None of that is Elk River’s fault. Until last winter, Elk River spent four years in Section 8AA, where they had the misfortune of having one of the best teams in the state the same years as Moorhead, which always prevailed in the sectional, once beating the Elks in a four-overtime classic.
When the Elks were finally taken out of Section 8AA, they were plugged into 7AA, where they lost in the title game to Duluth East last year, making it five straight years an excellent Elk River team had failed to make the state tournament since its only appearance, in 1993.
Sarsland has established a trademark of a hard-working, unwavering attack, coupled with the flamboyance Sarsland’s snakeskin boots and sometimes-controversial statements that are much more direct than they are tactful. Sarsland attracted more of the wrong kind of attention last year, when he verbally threatened Joey Bailey, a good-skating junior, and long-time assistant coach Marly Glines quit in the aftermath, even though his son was a junior goaltender on the team.
But everything has been in order this season. Bailey plays on the first line with fellow-senior Jed Leonard and sophomore Joel Hanson. It was Hanson who scored at 0:12 of the first period to ignited the Elks past East in the DECC, but the most dramatic game of Elk River’s season was still ahead.
The Elks outshot Hibbing 62-28, but it wasn’t until 3:56 of the third overtime that Leonard who took a feed from Bailey and broke to the net from the left side, jamming a shot in to end a sensational, 60-save performance by Hibbing’s sophomore goaltender Travis Weber.
Another key performer for the Elks is sophomore Trevor Stewart, who centers juniors John Brummer and Justin Nikle. Stewart set up Brummer for two goals in the second period to break a 1-1 tie against East, and it was Brummer’s power-play goal with 2:13 remaining in regulation that tied Hibbing 1-1 and forced the three overtimes.
“I was worried because we put so much pressure on Hibbing, and their goalie played so great,” said Glines, who has remained solid in the nets for Elk River all season, and can now display his 1.9 goals-against average and 89-percent save mark at state.
“Nobody ever said Mitch was any good,” said Sarsland. “But all he’s done all year is win for us. My heart goes out to Hibbing, because I’ve been there. A few years ago [1994] we had the best team in the state but we lost one game, in four overtimes to Moorhead in the section final.
“This time, after all these years, and all the close games, I was on the bench saying, ‘Please, lord, c’mon, just once let us win one of these.’ ”
Traveling to Target Center will be a shorter hop for the Elks, who were conditioned for the road by flying in their own Olympic-sized ice sheet and on the road by Sarsland.
“We haven’t lost a game in three years in our new rink,” said Sarsland. “It’s baloney that we have to come up to Section 7AA to play. Sure, we deserve to be in the tournament, but these Range teams and Duluth teams are the reason the state tournament even exists. We’re not a Range team, we belong in Section 4.
“But because we knew we had to come up here and play Duluth East in Duluth, and Hibbing in Hibbing, we scheduled our last six games on the road.”
Those were at Champlin Park, Burnsville, Anoka and Blaine. The Anoka and Blaine games came after Elk River had achieved the No. 1 seed in 7AA, and the Elks went back and lost both of them to the teams from their legitimate section. That dropped the Elks from 19-1 and the No. 1 rating in the state, but they now have rebounded and stand 22-3.
And now the state’s television crews can scramble to focus on Sarsland’s snakeskin boots. He hadn’t worn them for a while, but he pulled them back on for the sectional. “I’m trying to keep a low profile,” Sarsland said. “But…these are my lucky boots.” Obviously, he’ll be wearing them at Target Center.
About the Author
John Gilbert is a lifetime Minnesotan and career journalist, specializing in cars and sports during and since spending 30 years at the Minneapolis Tribune, now the Star Tribune. More recently, he has continued translating the high-tech world of autos and sharing his passionate insights as a freelance writer/photographer/broadcaster. A member of the prestigious North American Car and Truck of the Year jury since 1993. John can be heard Monday-Friday from 9-11am on 610 KDAL(www.kdal610.com) on the "John Gilbert Show," and writes a column in the Duluth Reader.
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