Breck surprises top-rated Warroad in 3-2 Class A title game
MINNEAPOLIS, MINN.—Breck scored a pair of second-period goals and then held off Warroad’s determined third-period rally to defeat the Warriors 3-2 Saturday afternoon at Target Center and capture the Golden Valley private school’s first state hockey championship.
Breck (24-3-1) had to knock off a Warroad team that had been ranked No. 1 among the state’s smaller Class A schools most of the season, but the Mustangs did it in style, battling the Warriors (21-6-2) to a physical standoff and a shots-on-goal standoff, and clinging to that narrow margin on the scoreboard.
Breck got an opening goal from Josh Haller, and broke a 1-1 tie in the second with goals by Jake Brenk and Joe Adams to vault into a 3-1 lead. That withstood Warroad’s best attack of the day, when Nick Marvin provided the needed early goal, at 1:18 of the third period, to give the Warriors plenty of time for the equalizer. But goaltender John Curry wouldn’t flinch again, and the Mustangs came right back with counter-attacks to keep Warroad at bay.
“Mustangs are a good name for them, because they’ve got some horses who can just fly,” said Warroad coach Cary Eades. “Today, I think a couple of ’em must have been named Secretariat and Citation. Their second goal, and then the third one, really hurt us in the second period. But I’m proud of our players. As they’ve done all year, they gave it everything they have and we crfeated some chances. Even in the third period, Mitch Thortsen, our sniper, had two or three shots, but their goaltender made some great saves.”
Eades — the new and philosophical Cary Eades — refused to criticize referees Paul Stangl and Rich Robbins, who had more controversial plays to call than the rest of the tournament put together.
Haller’s goal came at 8:24, with a blast from the right point that hit goalie Brian McFarlane’s leg pad and popped up and over it before landing in the crease and trickling in. Selvog’s tying goal for Warroad created the first officiating nightmare.
Rushing up the left side, Selvog sent a slapshot on net. Curry, down on his knee, deflected the puck off his tilted stick, and it flashed up to the left, striking the goal pipe up high, then bouncing behind Curray and sliding out the right side of the crease without ever crossing the goal line. Neither referee was close enough to see the play, but one of them signalled immediately it was a goal, even though the goal light didn’t come on. From his perspective, he obviously thought it went off the back pipe, and while video replays proved otherwise, the refs don’t have the luxury of video.
The second period started and Warroad’s Jesse George scored after stepping in front from the left and putting in a backhander. It was immediately disallowed for a player in the crease, and video replays proved Kevin Muller was in the left edge of the crease, but he had been pushed in there from behind by Breck’s Jon Septer, then held in there by Septer and a teammate while thepuck went in.
After Brenk put Breck ahead 2-1 by rushing deep on the left of a 3-on-1 and actually fluffing his pass — only to see it go on net and glance in off McFarlane’s glove — the Warriors had another scramble at the Breck goal. This time Thortsen had two whacks at a loose puck in the crease and knocked it in, but at about the same moment, Septer, Breck’s junior defenseman of the hour, knocked the left pipe adrift. The referees immediately waved off the goal for the net being dislodged.
“I’ll tell you what, it was a one-goal game with a lot of critical plays,” said Eades. “The refs call them as they see ’em, and as far as I’m concerned, they acted first class all the way. This was a well-refereed tournament, and there were a lot of plays we could have made, so we’re not going to criticize the refs.”
Joe Adams, the sophomore half of Breck’s two brothers along with junior John Adams, scored the game-winner on a great play. John Adams lobbed a long pass out to C.J. Nibbe, who broke up the left side and passed perfectly across the slot to Joe Adams, who one-timed his shot up into the roof of the net over a sprawling McFarlane with only nine seconds left in the second period.
“We were really hanging on in the third period,” said Wally Chapman, Breck’s ninth-year coach and a former star winger at Edina and the University of Minnesota. “But we told our players that Warroad was a tough physical team, and I thought we handled that part well.”
The Mustangs not only handled it, they initiated much of the physical stuff, which may have elevated their pace — from Mustang to thoroughbred. And they still had some kicks in the third period.
(cutlines for state hockey tournament final day…)
[Cutlines for the state tourney stuff…]
1/Blaine’s Trevor Frischmon flipped in a rebound at the left of the net to give Blaine a 3-0 first-period lead Saturday night in the Bengals 6-0 state Class AA championship at Target Center. East goaltender Dan Hoehne had made the initial save.
2/ Trevor Frischmon stickhandled out of the corner and scored against Duluth East goaltender Dan Hoehne to open a 4-0 lead in Blaine’s 6-0 state championship romp.
3/ Matt Moore (26) scored to ignite Blaine’s 6-0 state Class AA championship game victory over Duluth East Saturday at Target Center. East goalie Dan Hoehne had no chance as Moore scored the first two goals in the Bengals’ 3-goal first period.
(more state tourney (class a) cutlines…
Cutlines with Class A final day photos:
1/ Breck’s C.J. Nibbe was stopped at the crease by Warroad goaltender Brian McFarlane in Saturday’s 3-2 Breck victory in the state Class A hockey championship game at Target Center. Warroad defenseman Tyrone Cole (14) tried to help out, and Bryan Hontved (9) covered Breck’s Tom Simmons (13).
2/ It may have been only the third-place game, but International Falls celebrated as if it were the championship after Charlie Shuman’s second goal of the game beat Sauk Rapids-Rice 4-3 at 5:17 of sudden-death overtime at Target Center.
Bengal blitz buries Greyhounds in 6-0 state hockey final
MINNEAPOLIS, MINN.— The two questions about Saturday night’s Class AA state hockey tournament championship game were, one, could Duluth East could contain Blaine’s remarkable speed in the first two periods, and, two, could Blaine, playing two lines, cope with Duluth East’s balance and skill in the third period? The answer to the first one was no, and it was such a decisive “no” that the second question became unnecessary.
The unheralded Blaine Bengals zapped the Greyhounds with three goals in the first period, three more in the second, and stunned East’s title hopes with a 6-0 victory before 16,165 fans at Target Center.
It was the first championship for Blaine (21-5-2), and prevented the Greyhounds (22-5) from their fourth state title and third in six years.
The Greyhounds did indeed get some chances in the third period, but it appeared Blaine was on something approaching cruise control, and Steve Witkowski — Blaine’s goaltender, who was accused of being part of the team’s weakness earlier in the season — was flawless, making saves on all 21 shots East fired his way.
When the game opened, East ranked as the favorite, and the Hounds came hard into the Blaine zone, but Nick Nelson’s try from the right edge was blocked by a diving Witkowski. And then, lightning struck.
The puck slide up the left boards into the East zone, and Matt Moore not only beat Tommy Allen to it, he ducked Allen’s check attempt, then cut in a flash to the net, where he fired past goaltender Dan Hoehne at 6:02.
Witkowski stopped Andy LeTourneau’s near-breakaway, but the Bengals killed off a penalty and then Moore struck again. This time, Matt Hendricks broke across center ice with the puck. He cut to his left, then fed back to the right, where Trevor Frischmon caught the pass and returned it. Hendricks, speeding in on the right side, feathered a pass across the goal-mouth and Moore hammered it in at 12:26.
Still, it was only 2-0, and certainly not a crisis. The crisis was coming. The Greyhounds flipped the puck casually into the Blaine zone, but Frischmon, back to aid the defense, picked it off and made an instant transition, flying up the left side. He dropped a pass to Chad Smith, who fired a hard shot from the slot. Hoehne blocked it, but Frischmon was right there at the left edge and chipped in the rebound at 14:30.
That made it the first time in 14 games the Greyhounds had given up more than two goals in a game, and gave indication that if things didn’t change drastically, it would be the first time the Hounds would lose in 16 games.
Nothing changed. In fact, it was almost an identical period, with Blaine again outshooting East 8-6, and again outscoring the Hounds 3-0. The futility of the night was pretty well determined in the first three minutes of the middle period. At 1:10, Frischmon had the puck in the right corner of the East zone. The East defense sized him up, and, perhaps, misgauged the quickness. When these Bengals have the puck, leaving any gap is too much.
Frischmon bolted past the defense, found himself alone at the crease, and jammed the puck in at 1:10.
So much for East coming out hard to equalize things in the second period.
At 2:31, a bad situation became impossible for the Greyhounds when Brandon Bochenski — the one winger that even the Blaine coaches had said wasn’t a good skater — carried the puck out of his own end and, with a sudden and flashy move, stickhandled through sophomore defenseman Tom Sawatske and was gone. A breakaway. And he had time to deke and beat Hoehne with a backhand from the left edge.
The Greyhounds never stopped working and kept trying to stick with the formidible tools that got them this far. But with a faceoff in the right corner of the East zone, Blaine won the faceoff and Chad Smith stepped in to pick up the loose puck and drill a major league shot into the upper right corner at 12:30.
The third period, which might have been pivotal if East had been able to contain Blaine and be tied or within a goal, was moot. The Greyhounds couldn’t contain Blaine’s incredible speed. Heck, the Dallas Stars might not have been able to stop the aroused Bengals on their sensational Saturday night.
Welch’s goal lifts Hastings to 2-1 OT victory over Jaguars
Hastings coach Russ Welch could be excused for having a little extra jump in his step, as he hopped off the bench and onto the ice to hurry out to the pile of his players on the Target Center ice. Adam Welch, the coach’s sophomore son, had just whistled a slapshot from the right point that found the Bloomington Jefferson net and gave the Raiders a 2-1 victory in the second sudden-death overtime of their Class AA state hockey quarterfinal game.
Shots on goal were not necessary, nor was territorial advantage. If they were, Bloomington Jefferson would have won the game, outshooting Hastings 35-20. But if it was going to happen that way, sophomore Mike Bernhagen’s shot from the right circle would have gone in, instead of clanking off the crossbar a minute before Welch’s game-winner.
So Hastings (21-4-1) goes on to tonight’s second semifinal against the Blaine-Rochester Mayo winner, while Jefferson goes to Mariucci Arena in the consolation round, at 18-7-1.
“I thought Jefferson played well, but we didn’t,” said Russ Welch. “Adam gets the winner. He shoots at a big tarp in the basement, and he shoots all the time. That’s the way things go — halfway through the game, I could have killed him, and he ends up a hero.”
Adam said his dad was upset because “I wasn’t moving my feet too well. It wasn’t any big thing, just a lot of little things.”
As for the tarp? “I shoot a few pucks,” he said. “Probably 200 a week.”
On the game-winner, Welch wound up with the puck at the right point, and practice made perfect when he cut loose, and the screened shot found the net.
The Jaguars outshot Hastings in every period except the third, when it was 8-8, and three times they took the lead, only to have the Raiders find a way to get the equalizers.
Christian Koelling scored a nifty opening goal when Ross Greenhagen lagged a long pass off the right boards, forcing Koelling to strain to overtake. He got it at about the right circle, cut severely toward the net, and jammed a backhander through goaltender Matt Klein at 11:08 of the first period. Matt VanDerBosch tied it for Hastings less than three minutes later, scoring on Adam Gerlach’s pass out from the right end boards.
In the second period, Koelling scored again, this time tipping in Adam Dirlam’s left point shot at 2:39. The 2-1 lead lasted until 7:11, when Hastings goalie Klein flipped a long outlet pass to sophomore Nick Harris. He stopped deep on the right and passed to the trailing Travis Kieffer, who moved in, deked and scored on a backhander.
In the third period, Ryan Hallquist of the Jaguars had the puck deep in the left corner, and fed to the slot where Joey Wineberg blasted a shot into the upper left at 3:13, putting Jefferson up 3-2. Once again, however, the Raiders tied it, this time on a fluke, 52 seconds later. Derrick Pfeffer threw the puck in from the left corner, but it was going nowhere. Jefferson’s Bernhagen, trying to pull the puck clear, but it slithered off his stick, toward the crease, where it pinballed off goalie Jeremy Earl’s skate and wound up across the goal line.
“We might get outshot, but we almost always find a way to win,” said Klein, who made 29 saves.
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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