Licari provides tune-up as Greyhounds beat St. Francis 5-0
Duluth East’s top-rated regional and No. 3 statewide hockey team was running like a well-oiled machine before taking the last two weeks off from the most rigorous regular-season schedule imaginable. It figured they might be in need of a tune-up after the break, and it didn’t help that St. Francis kept trying to clog up the gears Thursday night.
But the top-seeded Greyhounds overcame the rugged Saints 5-0 behind two goals from sophomore Nick Licari in the Section 7AA quarterfinal at the DECC. The Greyhounds got an idea that they’d better be ready from the night’s opener, in which Ely — the bottom seed in Section 7A — stunned second-seeded Denfeld 7-2 in the A-class quarterfinal.
“It was a good game for us after the long layoff,” said East coach Mike Randolph. “They pounded us a little, but they’re a good team, and they’ve got some good players. I’d bet that’s the best St. Francis team they’ve ever had.”
The Greyhounds, 19-4, advance to face Hibbing, in Hibbing, at high noon on Saturday in a semifinal battle, after the fifth-seeded Bluejackets traveled to Brainerd to eliminate the fourth-seeded entry 8-0. Greenway of Coleraine, the No. 2 seed, overcame neighboring rival Grand Rapids 5-2, to gain the right to face Cloquet-Esko-Carlton, which beat Forest Lake in Thursday’s quarterfinals.
St. Francis weathered some early East pressure and, though outshot 13-5 in the first period, kept the game scoreless until 11:36, when Licari wound up alone in the slot and Andy LeTourneau, who grabbed a loose puck, fed him for the game’s first goal. The game slipped away from St. Francis in the second period, when Tommy Kolar scored from the crease at 4:31, and Tom Sawatske scored a power-play goal that was deflected in cleanly but inadvertently by a Saints defenseman at 9:14.
“They had too many quick guys,” said St. Francis coach Marty DeKanick. “But if we pick up the guy on the one goal and don’t tip one into our own net, it would have still been 1-0. We passed up a lot of shots.”
True, the Saints seemed so preoccupied with containing East they neglected their own offense, which includes Justin Davis, one of the state’s top 10 scorers. East goaltender Dan Hoehne needed only 11 saves to register the shutout. Vince Beaman, in the St. Francis net, had more of a struggle, as East outshot the Saints 36-11.
LeTourneau boosted it to 4-0 midway through the third period, on Tom Allen’s third assist of the game, and Licari came out of the penalty box to slam in a Ross Carlson behind-the-net pass at 11:47.
“They played us well,” said Licari, who now has 20 goals for the season, although his line had a ragged night. Center Zach Burns injured his back on the first shift and played, although he got a chance for extra rest with a misconduct penalty at the end of the second period, and the rarely-penalized Licari was dealt three penalties, including a curious one at the end of the second that inspired the Burns comment. Carlson also had a penalty, meaning, with four minors and a misconduct for the game, that line was the target of the St. Francis checkers and the officials as well.
DENFELD STUNNED
BY ELY’S SPLURGE
The current debate on whether the wolf population poses a threat to people in larger cities gained some anti-wolf supporters at the DECC Thursday night. The Denfeld hockey team became the endangered species when the Ely Timberwolves invaded the city of Duluth and thrashed the Hunters 7-2 in a Section 7A quarterfinal game.
Ely, which had to win a preliminary round game at higher-seeded Mesabi East on Tuesday, did that with a 5-2 mild upset, then they came to play for the first time in the DECC and scored three goals in the first period and four in the second to build a 7-0 lead and coast into Saturday’s semifinals. The Timberwolves will play International Falls at 7:30 in Hibbing, after Falls whipped defending champion Silver Bay Thursday. The other 7A semifinal will be at 1:30 p.m. Saturday in the DECC, between Marshall, which beat Eveleth-Gilbert, and Virginia/Mountain Iron-Buhl, which overcame Two Harbors.
The primary attraction in Section 7A is that every entry has the potential to win but fights inconsistency. Ely and Denfeld have been textbook examples. Denfeld can play alert, forcefull hockey, as the Hunters did in the third period when Scott Spehar and John Rodberg scored their only goals. Trouble was, it was running time the whole third period, and no time to build on the goals.
In the first period, Ely’s Nick Levar and Scott Vejtasa scored 49 seconds apart in the first five minutes, and Jeff Richards added a power-play goal for a 3-0 lead. Linemates Shane Creevy and Craig Jankowski scored twice apiece in the second period. The first goal by Jankowski, who now has 30 for the season, told the story of the game. With Ely on the power play, Denfeld’s Spehar swiped the puck and broke in alone, but Ely goaltender Pete Kramer lunged and poke-checked the puck away from Spehar and right to Jankowski, who sped to the other end of the DECC rink and scored.
“We came out on fire,” said Jankowski, the team captain while only a junior. “This is the time to do it. Falls will be tough. They beat us 4-1 during the season. But Mesabi East had beaten us twice, too, 5-4 in overtime and 6-4 on an empty-net goal, and we beat them 5-2.”
Ely coach Bob Bestul said the first time his Timberwolves had ever been in the DECC was to scrimmage Denfeld, which outscored them. “I said then that we had to shoot for getting back to play in the DECC,” Bestul said. “We stepped it up tonight, and it even surprised me. I’d say the first two periods were the best we’ve played. We slacked off in the third, but maybe because we’d never been in that position before.”
That position was a 7-0 lead. The Timberwolves overcame a six-game losing streak late in the season when Bestul juggled lines for balance. After scoring just eight goals in those six losses, the ‘Wolves underwent a bit of soul-searching and then scored 33 goals in four consecutive victories — going into Saturday.
“They played well,” said Denfeld coach Dean Herold. “Their goalie played well in the first period, when we had some chances, but they’ve got some good skaters, who can put the puck in the net. I was glad we played with some class in the third period.”
UMD ignores continued snubs to focus on national tourney
Time after time, the UMD women’s hockey team has been put down and insulted this season, and time after time the Bulldogs have simply skated out onto the nation’s ice rinks and won games to prove themselves. UMD coach Shannon Miller has been able to laugh it all off because it has provided additional incentive for the Bulldogs. But time is up, and she says she has about had it.
Miller, the sole architect of this amazing first-year team, which has attracted national attention from the likes of the New York Times, USA Today, Sports Illustrated and CBS-TV, said it’s high time the Bulldogs get the credit they deserve from the clique of more-established, influential programs, who control such things as the ratings and the national tournament pairings. UMD won the WCHA’s automatic slot in the final four as playoff champion, while Brown won the ECAC league title for an automatic spot.
The ECAC semifinals are Saturday, with Northeastern playing top-seeded Brown and Dartmouth facing second-seed Harvard, the defending national champions. Those winners meet Sunday for the title, and the winner will be the third final-four entry. The fourth will be an at-large pick — either a third ECAC team or Minnesota — for the final four at Northeastern on Friday and Saturday.
“Northeastern knocked out New Hampshire, and I find myself hoping Northeastern wins the ECAC playoff, even if that means Harvard gets voted in and Minnesota out,” said Miller. “It would be good for midwestern women’s hockey to get Minnesota in, but they still seem so arrogant. They’ve put us down and snubbed us all year, assuming that only one western would go, and it would be them. So now we beat them, and it’s like they’re saying, ‘if we beat you, we’d go and you’d stay home, but now you beat us, but we should still go.’ Maybe they should have a taste of their own medicine.”
It would seem that if UMD’s 25-3-3 record, plus winning the Women’s-WCHA league and playoff championships, earning a slot in next week’s national championship tournament, would be sufficient evidence of what the Bulldogs have accomplished. But just in case the Bulldogs needed another insult or two as incentive for the national tournament, they got a couple of them this week.
UMD had been ranked No. 7 nationally before the WCHA tournament, while Minnesota was No. 3. After beating the Gophers 2-0 in the title game, the Bulldogs rose to the No. 3 spot, behind Brown and Harvard, with Minnesota No. 4. Both teams have been idle for two weeks, awaiting the results of the ECAC tournament, which concludes this weekend, but this week, the coaches ranked UMD and Minnesota tied for third with 76 points, behind Brown University (97) and Harvard (89).
So after beating Minnesota for the WCHA title and for the WCHA playoff title, and going 3-1-1 against the Gophers head-to-head, and earning the grudging admission from Minnesota coach Laura Halldorson that UMD had proven itself the better team, the coaches who vote have declared them even.
As if that weren’t enough, UMD’s Jenny Schmidgall and Maria Rooth were both among 10 finalists for the Patty Kazmeier Award — the female equivalent of the Hobey Baker. The list was pared to a final four this week, and neither Schmidgall nor Rooth was among them. Brown goalie Ali Brewer, Providence goalie Sara DeCosta, Brown defenseman Tara Mounsey and New Hampshjire forward Carisa Zaban are the four finalists. Zaban has 35 goals, 37 assists for 72 points, which puts her eight points ahead of Rooth’s 35-29–64. But Schmidgall leads the nation in scoring at 39-49–88.
“I am very disappointed that Shmiggy is not in the final four,” said Miller. “The four players they chose are all very good players, but Jenny should be among the top four, because she is the best women’s hockey player in the world. Even if they wanted to pick a senior, Shmiggy shouldn’t be excluded because of that, because there’s nothing in the rules that say it has to be a senior.”
Miller, always upbeat, had to laugh at the continued slights aimed toward a program that has brought more fame to women’s college hockey than all the rest of the nation’s teams combined. There were slight notices when players from the U.S. Olympic team came home to play on college teams at Harvard and Minnesota last season. But Miller put a first-year team together with a handful of scholarships, by rounding up players from all around the globe. Miller blended together players from Finland (Hanne Sikio, Jenni Venho, Tuula Puputti), Sweden (Rooth and Erika Holst), Canada (Pamela Pachal, Michelle McAteer, Laurie Alexander, Navada Russell, Joanne Eustace, Amanda Tapp), and Minnesota (Alexa Gollinger, Shannon Mikel, Breana Berry, Leah Wrazidlo), then got a pair of high-profile transfers from the Gopher program (Schmidgall and Brittny Ralph) and some players from the UMD club team (Riana Burke, Jessi Flink, Jessica Smith, Kellie Frick, Angela Harvieux, and senior Erin Nagurski).
The story became appealing to national media when the Bulldogs raced undefeated through the 1999 portion of their schedule. Established teams seemed arrogant when they were reluctant to schedule a first-year team, even a brash and confident first-year team. So UMD played the teams it could, and roared undefeated on into January before finally losing — twice at New Hampshire and once to the Gophers.
If the Bulldogs had a struggling stretch, the toughest part of their schedule might have been responsible, but they bounced back, in the third period of the first game of the Gopher series at Pioneer Hall. Trailing 4-1, UMD came back to lose 4-3, then played a fantastic 2-2 tie the next night, yielding only two power-play goals while scoring twice at full strength. From then on, the resurgent Bulldogs not only regained their pace, they accelerated it, winning their four final WCHA games to beat the Gophers by one point for the league title, and whipping Ohio State 7-1 in the playoff semifinals before shutting the Gophers down and out, 2-0 in the final.
“One of the best things about that game was the play of our third line, with Laurie Alexander centering Newfie (Joanne Eustace, from Newfoundland) and Jessi Flink,” said Miller. “Our top two lines played well, and I expected that, but it was the best game the third line has played all year. They really contributed. And our defense played well, with Brittny Ralph stepping up and playing her best.”
The final piece of UMD’s puzzle was Puputti joining the team for winter semester. “Against Minnesota, she was perfect,” said Miller. “That’s what we expected from her.”
Miller’s expectations have been high all season, and her players have lived up to them, even if those doing the ratings and setting the pairings and picking star players might tend to overlook those accomplishments. If this is truly a Cinderella operation, a team of destiny, there is only one way to convince all cynics — on the ice at the Northeastern University rink.
Class A 3rd-place game defines what tourney is all about
In a way, it was a defining moment of what the Minnesota state hockey tournament was, is, shall be, and should be.
International Falls, champion of Section 7A, and Sauk Rapids-Rice, winner of Section 2A, were both trying to rebound from disappointing losses in the state semifinals. Falls had lost to top-ranked Warroad, 2-1 in two overtimes, while Sauk Rapids had lost 5-3 to eventual state champ Breck, 5-3 on an empty-net goal. They were playing each other in the state Class A consolation final, with coaches on both sides trying to pump up their players’ from the previous day’s dejection to play one final, tough game to their seasons.
Think about it. International Falls. The very name conjures up the stuff of legends. Remember the 1960s? For those who do, International Falls could have won five straight state titles, having won in 1962, and in 1964, ’65 and ’66. In 1963, the Broncos lost in overtime to St. Paul Johnson in the state final. If that ’63 game had gone the other way, Falls would have had five in a row. As it was, the overpowering team in the state ingrained its style and its look on the rest of the state, wearing those purple jerseys that actually were pretty well beat-up, but they absolutely reeked with class and the team’s pride.
International Falls has participated in 18 out of 56 tournaments, and seven of those times Falls took home the championshiop trophy.
On the other bench, Sauk Rapids-Rice was playing in the state tournament for the first time, ever. Coach Sheldon Weston had explained that the Storm had come on strong, beating Hermantown 6-1 in the 2A title game after having lost to the Hawks 4-0 during the season, by saying that his boys had been in awe of Hermantown as this “mythical state tournament team” in their first meeting. Hermantown had reached the Class A tournament in 1994, ’98 and ’99. So, naturally, in the playing lifetime of the Storm, the Hawks were THE team they couldn’t get by in 2A.
The Storm scored three goals in the third period to send the game into overtime. What words of inspiration could be summoned on the two benches?
“We talked a little about pride and tradition,” said Falls coach Kevin Gordon. “We had to nail down a few things that are important to these kids. My assistant, John Prettyman, played on the 1973 team, and they beat Minneapolis Southwest in the third-place game. He told the players he had been here, in the same situation, and they had to realize that if they won the game, their names would go in the book with all the others, and they’d go home with a medal around their necks.”
Before the tournament, Prettyman had sensed that the players felt pressure to live up to the high expectations that have been part of the fabric of the town of International Falls since the ’60s, and the days of Tim Sheehy, Lefty Curran, Jim Amidon, Peter Fichuk and all the others. So he told them that that shouldn’t be pressure, it should be a boost. “A lot of players have worn those jerseys before you guys,” Prettyman told them. “They’re still there behind you. You’re not alone in those jerseys.”
When Falls beat Hutchinson 6-0, everything worked. The Broncos gave it everything they had before falling 2-1 to Warroad.
Sauk Rapids-Rice coach Weston had his own awe-stricken moment to start the tournament. “When I looked at the program, and saw Roseau, Warroad, Hill-Murray, Edina, and International Falls, to have our school in the same program is a big boost for our program,” Weston said.
Sauk Rapids spotted Rochester Lourdes a 3-0 headstart and won 4-3 as ninth-grader Nathan Raduns scored the first two goals to spark the comeback. “When we won, and I looked across and saw all those young kids wearing hockey jerseys and cheering for us, all I could think about was how much it means to the future players,” said Weston.
Against Breck, Sauk Rapids came back from a 2-1 deficit to take a 3-2 lead after two, but fell short against Breck’s three third-period goals and lost 5-3.
In the consolation final, Raduns, the leading Storm scorer this season, went out with an injury in the first period. Again Sauk Rapids fell behind as Falls took a 3-0 lead after two. Sauk Rapids rallied for three straight goals in the third period to bring overtime. Charlie Schuman scored the game-winner for Falls, and the Broncos went home with another trophy.
Before the consolation final, it didn’t matter who the Broncos were playing, the message would have been the same. “John told the players to remember that this would be the last time they were going to wear that jersey” said Gordon.
What could Weston say to counter the rallying of the ghosts of legendary predecessors?
“At the second intermission, when we were down 3-0, I told ’em we’d been together all year long,” said Weston. “We’re not here because somebody handed it to us. We’ve got to take pride in all the hard work it took, and we deserved to be here. But as far as previous players in these uniforms pushing these players…These guys are the first. These guys are the ones whose names will push the teams from now on. Now we can finally talk about what it means to get here.”
It was only a consolation game, and it was only Class A — which some elitists think shouldn’t exist. But little moments like that are what makes the state tournament great. Always was, always will be.
‘Perfect game’ leaves East in shock, Blaine with big trophy
MINNEAPOLIS, MINN.—What a difference a year makes. A year ago, Blaine’s team went home from the Class AA state hockey tournament with a trophy, but it was the consolation trophy. One year later, the Bengals returned to Target Center and went home with the big trophy — after blitzing favored Duluth East 6-0 in a championship-game shocker Saturday night.
Being favored didn’t matter. Being tournament hardened by the toughest schedule any high school team has ever played didn’t matter. Blaine played a spectacular game, from start to finish, and while the East coaches might find a lot of things to criticize in their team’s play, the full credit has to go to the Bengals, who made things happen, made big plays, and then fed off those big plays to make more of them.
“Talk about a perfect game,” They’re all fluid skaters,” said East coach Mike Randolph. “They’re all fluid skaters, and they move the puck. You don’t usually see that many players who are that fast, who can make plays, while skating that fast. We thought they might get tired, playing only two lines, but all of a sudden they were up 3-0 in the first period and they weren’t tired at all.”
One of the contributing factors that sparked Blaine (21-5-2) was a feeling that despite beating Mayo 4-1 and Hastings 4-3 in the quarterfinals and semifinals, they would have to play their absolute best game ever to beat Duluth East, which had ridden a 4-1 victory over defending champion Roseau and a 4-2 triumph over resurgent Edina.
“Surprised? I was very surprised,” said Ross Carlson, one of only four seniors playing regularly for East. “I was surprised at how well they played, and how well they sustained it.”
The fact that East (23-5) has four seniors and mostly sophomores, while Blaine had 11 seniors might have been another key factor. The Hounds were hardened by their tough schedule against elite teams, but eight sophomores aren’t a physical match for 11 seniors, especiall when 10 of the Bengals also were stars on Blaine’s championship football team. Matt Hendricks was the quarrterback, Trevor Frischmon was an all-state running back, Brandon Bochenski was a top receiver, and the physical toughness and maturity may have showed.
But nothing explains the astounding performance the Bengals put on for 16,165 fans and a statewide television audience. Instead of “what a difference a year makes,” for the Bengals it should be “what a difference three weeks makes.” After rolling up seven straight victories through January and into February, Blaine lost 3-1 to Maple Grove, then blasted Coon Rapids 10-2, but ended the regular season with a 7-1 blowout loss to Elk River. When No. 1 Elk River was upset in the sectional semifinals by Osseo, maybe Blaine wasn’t taken seriously, even though they whipped Osseo 6-2 in the 4AA final. The Bengals expressed disappointment that the Elks were beaten, because they wanted to be the team to eliminate them. Obviously, based on their performance Saturday night, the Bengals could have beaten anybody in the state.
As good as Blaine was, different players led each night. In the quarterfinals, playing until midnight, Bochenski scored two goals and set up another in the first period, and Hendricks made it 4-0 in the second before Mayo got on the board. In the semifinals against Hastings, Hendricks took over and scored two first-period goals to vault Blaine from a 1-0 deficit to a 2-1 lead, and Matt Moore and Dan Holmgren added the others.
In the final, Moore scored the first two, Frischmon scored the next two, and Bochenski and Smith made it 6-0 in two periods. Bad as the 3-0 first period was for East, the Hounds could have generated something with an early goal in the second. Instead, Frischmon scored at 1:10 and Bochenski made it 5-0 at 2:31 of the second period.
It seems as though nobody has taken Blaine seriously. Scott Bjugstad, the former Irondale, University of Minnesota and North Stars winger, who co-coaches Blaine with Steve Larson, said that no matter how much he’s tried to encourage college scouts to recruit skilled and speedy seniors like Hendricks, Frischmon, Bochenski, Scott Romfo, Matt Moore, Chad Smith and Scott Foyt, there has been very little response or interest.
“Hendricks is going to St. Cloud State,” Bjugstad said. “And Moore is going to Air Force Academy. But that’s it. Frischmon is going to play junior at Lincoln in the USHL, but Bochenski, Romfo, Smith and the others have no college offers and haven’t even got junior offers.”
That, of course, was before Saturday night, when the Bengals may have shocked Duluth East, but they also may have embarrassed some college recruiters, who seem more intent on claiming that there aren’t any top prospects in high school hockey anymore than in even noticing the ones who are there.
If the 10 returning Bengals appeared to be on a mission while beating Rochester Mayo 4-1 and Hastings 4-3, and then the Greyhounds 6-0, there was good reason. Last year, a junior-dominated Blaine team took on a senior-loaded tournament favorite in Hastings in the first round. It was an incredible game, with Hastings scoring 22 seconds into the game, Blaine countering at 0:55, then Hastings taking off to hit a 4-1 lead after one, which became 5-3 after two. But the Bengals scored three straight goals in the third period to vault into a 6-5 lead, and it remained 6-5 into the final minute.
Hastings star Dan Welch, now a freshman with the Gophers, scored a goal with 41 seconds left to tie the game 6-6, and as everybody got set for overtime, Welch scored again with “0:00.2” showing on the basketball-oriented Target Center clock. Basketball teams seem to be able to spend several minutes playing the final seconds, but tenths of a second don’t mean much in hockey. Except in this case, when the Bengals were relegated to the consolation bracket by less than a full second. Blaine beat Hill-Murray and Eden Prairie to take the consolation title, but that was nothing, compared to playing for the big trophy.
That wrenching loss to Hastings might be why Blaine co-coaches Larson and Bjugstad seized up just a little when, in the semifinals on Friday, they watched Blaine’s 4-2 lead shrink to 4-3 when Andy Hartung fired a shot from center ice that hit goaltender Steve Witkowski and somehow tumbled pastd him for a goal with five seconds remaining. It couldn’t possibly happen again, could it? On the final faceoff, Hastings got the puck to star Adam Gerlach, who promptly fired a 90-foot rocket — right on net, but saved by Witkowski. Revenge was sweet, if a bit nerve-wracking.
Still, after losing two of their last three games, then winning three Section 4AA games and two in the state tournament, there was no indication the Bengals were about to paint their masterpiece on the thin ice of Target Center in the final. While the Greyhounds sat, stunned and disappointed in their dressing room after the game, they can take incentive from the Bengals, who turned “Wait till next year” into a championship trophy.
ALL-TOURNAMENT
Hendricks, Bochenski, Moore and Foyt were voted to the AA all-tournament team, along with East’s Nick Licari, Ross Carlson, goalie Dan Hoehne and defenseman Tommy Allen; Mayo’s defenseman Andy Canzanello, Roseau defenseman Josh Grahn, Edina goalie Chris Kapsen, and Hastings forward Travis Kieffer.
Hastings beat Edina 4-3 in two overtimes in the third-place game, pushing back the start of the final until nearly 9 p.m. Roseau beat Mayo 4-1 for the AA consolation trophy.
The Class A champion Breck Mustangs, who beat Warroad 3-2 in the final, put defenseman Josh Haller, center Jake Brenk and winger Todd O’Hara on the A all-tournament team, while Warroad had four — goalie Brian McFarlane, defenseman Nick Marvin and forwards Cory Monshaugen and Tony Selvog — because ballots must be turned in after only one period of the championship game. International Falls, the third-place winner, had center Brady Fougner, defenseman Derick Zirups and goalie Jayme Fisher, while Rochester Lourdes defenseman Mark Stuart and Sauk Rapids-Rice center Nathan Raduns was also picked.
International Falls, the 7A champ, beat Hutchinson 6-0, but lost a 2-1 double-overtime classic to Warroad in the semifinals, before bouncing back to beat 2A champ Sauk Rapids-Rice 4-3 in overtime in the third-place game. Charlie Schuman scored his second goal of the game to win it after Sauk Rapids overcame the first-period injury to Raduns to erase a 3-0 deficit in the third period. In the final, Breck jumped to a 3-1 lead in the second period, then yielded a goal to Marvin early in the third, but held on for a 3-2 victory. Farmington, a first-round victim of Warroad, came back to win the A consolation 2-1 in two overtimes from Lourdes, which had lost to Sauk Rapids 4-3 in the first round.
Shuman gets 3rd place for Broncos with personal shootout
MINNEAPOLIS, MINN.— Charlie Shuman wasn’t on coach Kevin Gordon’s list of potential shootout candidates if International Falls hadn’t been able to break its deadlock with Sauk Rapids-Rice in the state Class A hockey tournament’s third-place game. Shuman didn’t know that, of course, and he also wouldn’t have expected it, because he only had three goals for the season.
But that was before Saturday afternoon’s game at Target Center. Shuman, a 5-foot-7, 140-pound senior scored his second goal of the game at 5:17 of sudden-death overtime to lift the Broncos to a 4-3 victory and the third-place trophy. Shuman also had scored a power-play goal on a similar rebound play at 13:38 of the second period, which staked Falls to a 3-0 lead. Sophomore Tom Biondich had scored in both the first and second periods to get the Broncos started.
Sauk Rapids-Rice, however, roared back with three consecutive goals in barely over three minutes midway through the third period, forcing overtime. At 5:17, Shuman found himself next to the crease when the puck came loose again, and scored the biggest goal of his high school career.
“I’ve got five goals for the year,” said Shuman. “Including these two. We were forechecking it low, and Tony Biondich and Mike Jensen had shots at it, then it popped straight out. I was just in the right place at the right time, and knocked it in.
“My first goal was pretty much the same. We were working it low, and Chad Baldwin forced his way to the net for a shot. The rebound was right there, and I popped it through the goalie’s legs. It was a neat feeling, no question the biggest goal I’d ever scored — at that point.”
Gordon acknowledged that it was a great way for a hard-working senior to end his final high school game, and said that he was aware the high school league was allowing only one eight-minute overtime, and one 15-minute overtime in the third-place games before calling for a shootout match between alternating players from a list to be submitted by each team.
“I guess before the game, Charlie wouldn’t have been on my list,” Gordon laughed. “But he’d be on it now.”
The Broncos (20-8), who lost to Warroad in the semifinals, and Sauk Rapids, which lost to eventual Class A champ Breck, both exhibited some of the frustration of playing a morning-start game instead of reaching the finals. Falls took 11 penalties and the Storm 10, and the Broncos broke on top while both teams were missing a man, with Biondich scoring.
In the second period, Biondich scored again on a power play, then Shuman got his first with 1:22 to go, also on a power play.
“At the second intermission, I told our players that we had been together all year long, so what did they want to do?” said Sauk Rapids coach Sheldon Weston. “I said, ‘Shall we try to win this thing, or just fill in the blanks?’ ”
That was an easy choice, although Sauk Rapids was playing without freshman Nathan Raduns, the team scoring leader who made the all-tournament team but went out after being in one of the first-period crashes. He was a bit dazed from hitting his head, and he was cut on the chin for a couple of stitches. Another loss was Jeremy Rogosheske, who left in the second period with a deep thigh bruise.
Sauk Rapids started the comeback anyhow, when Travis Armbrust scored on a goal-mouth pass at 5:08 during a Storm power play. Joe Miller knocked in an almost identical set-up from John Schultz at 6:51, and the Storm was coming on strong. At 8:23, Schultz came out from behind the net to score on a wraparound at the left post for the 3-3 deadlock.
“It didn’t surprise me that they made a comeback,” said Falls coach Gordon. “We got a little rattled when they started scoring. But we reminded them of a few things that were important to them. This was a really rewarding because we have 10 kids who have been together through some pretty tough times.”
When Shuman came through with his winning goal, it rewarded the Broncos for outshooting the Storm 41-24, but it couldn’t blunt the Storm’s success story. “This is the first year we won the Rum River Conference, the first year we ever won 20 games, and our first state tournament,” said Weston. “We look at programs like Roseau, Warroad, Hill-Murray, Edina and International Falls, and the tradition they have. To have our school in the same program with those is a great boost for our school.”
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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