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Edina junior goaltender Chris Kapsen held on after making a save, as teammates Dustin Heigl (8) and Will Wetterlin (4) prevent Hill-Murray sophomore Dan Carlson (7) from getting close in their state Class AA tournament quarterfinal. Edina won 2-1 in two overtimes.
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Bloomington Jefferson’s sophomore Mike Bernhagen (11) had Hastings goaltender Matt Klein beaten, but his shot glanced high off the crossbar in the second overtime. Moments later Hastings won the Class AA quarterfinal state tournament game 2-1.
‘Slow’ Bengal leaves Mayo behind in 4-1 Blaine victory
Blaine’s reputation for explosive speed preceded the Bengals to Target Center, but the word was that one forward didn’t share the speedy attributes — Brandon Bochenski. Could have fooled the 15,666 fans at Thursday night’s last Class AA state tournament quarterfinals.
Bochenski’s two first-period goals and a slick set up for a third wound up as the margin of Blaine’s 4-1 victory over Rochester Mayo in the day’s final game.
The victory sends Blaine (19-5-2) into tonight’s 9:45 game against Hastings in the second semifinal, while Mayo (23-3) faces Jefferson in consolation play.
Bochenski has great balance, and exceptional hands, to compensate for this perceived lack of speed, but that so-called lack of speed could have fooled the Mayo defense in the first period, when the Blaine senior opened the game with a pair of goals in the first four minutes, assisted on one by Matt Moore for a 3-0 jump-start, and might have had a couple more except for big saves by Mayo’s Jeff Jakaitis.
It wasn’t just the goals, either, but the way Bochenski scored them. On the game’s first shift, defenseman Scott Romfo fed Matt Moore, streaking up the right boards. He hitched and sent a perfect 2-on-1 feed across to the slot, where Bochenski was breaking, and he put his 36th goal into the upper right corner at 0:29.
At 3:59, Mayo was attacking, but Bochenski blocked the puck free at the blue line and gained possession, but both defensemen were in position. Bochenski, however, apparently unaware that he was supposed to be the team’s “non-speedster,” broke past the defenseman and pulled steadily away, breaking clean before deking and scoring with a backhand at the left edge.
Bochenski had yet another breakaway in the first period but Jakaitis came up with the stop. Then, at 11:46, Moore raced up the right side for a loose puck, but lost the race and had the puck blocked free. Instead of stopping — these Bengals don’t ever seem interested in stopping — Moore kept on going, veering toward the net. It was as if he anticipated that Bochenski would get to the loose puck next, as he did, and pass it to the goal-mouth, which he did. Moore one-timed it, and Blaine had a stunning 3-0 lead.
The second period looked like more of the same, when, at 6:25, Romfo, the former forward who has converted the Bengals defense into a solid asset, fired a shot from the left point. Matt Hendricks deflected the puck down and in and it was 4-0.
Mayo finally got on the board on a power play at 10:07, when Mike Vlasek scored at the left edge with a pass from star defenseman Andy Canzanello.
But that was the only goal allowed by Blaine’s Steve Witkowski, as the Bengals used their third-line skaters liberally in the third period. Mayo actually outshot the Bengals 17-15, after an 8-4 edge in the third period. But while the Spartans played with determination, and defenseman Andy Canzanello lived up to his impressive reputation, they couldn’t cope with Blaine’s great speed — or with the Bengals’ slow guy.
Lourdes’ 3-0 lead washed out by Storm’s 4-goal deluge
The “Storm warnings” were true. Hermantown boosters saw the Sauk Rapids-Rice Storm coming on strong in the Section 2A final, and Wednesday the Storm struck inside Target Center. Sauk Rapids overcame a 3-0 deficit with three second-period goals, and John Schultz scored with a 30-foot slapshot with 1:15 remaining in the third period to give the Storm a 4-3 victory over Rochester Lourdes in the opening quarterfinal game their first state tournament.
Sauk Rapids (20-5-1) moves into Friday’s first semifinal of the Class A segment of the tournament, while Rochester Lourdes (21-4-1) moves into consolation today.
The opener was the first state tournament game for both teams, Sauk Rapids had a clear upper hand at the outset, but Lourdes had a couple of dangerous break-ins. With 1:30 to go in the opening period, sophomore Alex Miller stickhanded around a defender to break in, and he scored to the lower right to launch Lourdes, and the Eagles took the game over for a while. Mike Lawler broke in alone, beating goaltender Michael Wichman with a deke to his forehand and scoring from the left edge with 16 seconds remaining to make it 2-0, and Lawler opened the second period by stickhandling into the Storm zone and leaving a drop pass, then circling the net to score from the right edge after a flurry at the crease.
“I wasn’t too concerned, even down 3-0,” said Sauk Rapids coach Sheldon Weston. “Our ability to not panic was important, and once we settled down, we’ve got a lot of kids who can put the puck away.”
If Weston wasn’t concerned, it might have been because his team’s depth and the “Storm Forecheck” were at his disposal, and so was ninth-grader Nathan Raduns. It was Raduns who got the Storm going, coming out from behind the net to jam in his shot on sophomore goalie Dan Smith, who had stopped his first similar try. That came at 3:17 of the second period on a Sauk Rapids power play.
Raduns, who centers the first line despite being only a freshman, came back five minutes later, crashing the net from the right faceoff circle to jam in another goal and cut the deficit to 3-2. The Storm tied it on another power play, when Daniel Pickens, on the inside edge of the right corner circle, one-timed a pass from the left corner at 12:06.
Weston said he had gone to a more conservative forecheck (a 1-2-2) and his players were too cautious, so he opened it up to what he calls a “man-and-a-half,” meaning the first forechecker goes hard, and the second forward into the zone also can choose to forecheck hard. “We call it the ‘Storm Forecheck,’ and after we went to that, we got moving,” Weston said.
The winning goal was something like reverse déjàvu for Rochester Lourdes, who had beaten Albert Lea 4-3 in the 1A final game with 1:18 remaining. After the teams had battled back and forth throughout the final period, Schultz picked off a turnover near the left boards, circled to the slot and scored with a 30-foot slapshot at 13:45 — meaning only 1:15 remained.
“Give them the credit,” said Lourdes coach Jay Ness. “We were a little tight the first five or six minutes of the game, then we were OK. When it was 3-3, Lawler had a good chance and I thought it was in, but their goalie made a big save. Then they get a turnover and get a good chance, and they put it in.”
Lourdes has six seniors, but their key is their young players. The Eagles suited up an eighth-grader, a ninth-grader and eight sophomores, and six of the sophomores were on a special group that came up through the Rochester youth program. “They won the state Peewee championship, then the next two years they won the state Bantam championship,” said Ness. “This is the first time we’ve gotten a group like this. Usually the best Bantams go to John Marshall or Mayo, but these kids were all in Catholic schools, and they were from both sides of town, so if they had gone to one of those schools, they would have had to split up.”
Instead, they chose to go to Lourdes and stay together, and Ness should have a Class A power for years to come. Sauk Rapids, however, is not going to go away in the next few years either. Weston was asked if this was the biggest comeback the Storm had made this year, and he joked that the biggest comeback was against Hermantown, it just took two games to happen.
“We lost 4-0 to Hermantown early in the year, and we beat them 6-1 in the 2A final,” said Weston. “In our first game against them, we had never been to the state or anything, and they had been. So our kids thought of them as this mythical state tournament power. After the game, we knew we could play with them, and we were looking forward to the chance to play them again.”
O’Hara’s ‘routine’ hat trick leads Breck 5-2 past Fergus Falls
Todd O’Hara looked like the typical scoring star, the kind of player who scores in wholesale quantities, and rises up to lead his team at state tournament time. O’Hara did the latter, scoring three goals Wednesday afternoon to lead Breck to a 5-2 victory over Fergus Falls in the Class A quarterfinals.
But as far as being a prominent scorer for the Mustangs, coach Wally Chapman had to smile. “O’Hara scored four goals against St. Francis at Chrismastime,” Chapman said. “And he got three today. That’s seven in two games, and gives him a total for the season of 12.”
Actually, even if the junior winger only rises up to score at certain times, Chapman is happy with the output, and said he anticipates good things from O’Hara in the future. He’d undoubtedly like the future to come Friday afternoon, when Breck plays Sauk Rapids-Rice in the Class A semifinals.
The key to Breck (22-3-1) winning the game came when, after taking an early lead, twice the Mustangs yielded a goal to Fergus, but both times they counter-punched almost immediately to regain a secure margin.
O’Hara scored his first goal in the first period on a backhander from in front, and Chris Dale skated up the slot to convert the rebound after Jake Brenk rushed up wide on the right and shot from the circle. Goalie Chester Raguse blocked it, but had no chance on the rebound.
The Otters battled back, and Josh Anderson picked a blocked shot out of the slot, stepped to his left and scored at 8:36, cutting the deficit to 2-1. But only 1:29 passed before Breck’s Reid Larson corralled the puck deep in the left corner and flung a shot at the crease, with no real angle to score from — until the puck glanced in off the goaltender.
More of the same in the third period, when Fergus Falls battled to generate some offense, and Josh Anderson finally swooped in to gain control of the puck in the slot and drilled it for a power-play goal at 6:50, cutting Breck’s lead to 3-2. This time, only 45 seconds passed, and there was Brenk making another strong rush for a shot. With bodies strewn everywhere, the puck was parked in the crease, and O’Hara swung by and knocked it in to restore the lead at 4-2.
O’Hara chased down a rebound in the right circle at 9:13, whirled and flipped a blind backhander at the net. It went in, and the Mustangs had a 5-2 cushion.
“That was key,” said Chapman. “Being cable to come right back after they scored was really the key. Once you give up a goal, the longer it goes before you score, the more chance they have to build momentum. We were a little flat at the start, and I thought we were lucky to come away with the lead in the first period.”
Brad Bergstrom, Fergus Falls coach, said: “That’s as good a team as we’ve played. That’s the sign of a good team, too, when they come right back and score after you score. Chester (Raguse) was fantastic, they had 29 shots, and a lot of them were darn good ones. On top of everything else, he broke his mask on a pileup at the crease in the third period, but he never lost his focus. He put on the other goalie’s mask, and never missed a beat.”
The Otters (13-12) will play Rochester Lourdes in today’s consolation round at Mariucci Arena.
Monshaugen, Warroad defense smothers Fergus Falls 2-0
Amazing words, coming out of the mouth of Warroad coach Cary Eades, after the Warriors had battled thoroughly from start to finish to beat Farmington 2-0 in Wednesday’s quarterfinals of the state Class A hockey tournament.
Cory Monshaugen scored both goals for Warroad (20-5-2), one in the second period and one in the third, and Brian McFarlane made 16 saves in the shutout that will send Warroad into Friday afternoon’s second semifinal in the Class A tournament.
But the Warriors, who have had a tendency in recent years to not only beat teams, but beat them up a little along the way, won the game and only one penalty was called, that on Warroad’s Mitch Thortsen for boarding in the third period.
“The game has changed, it’s a different game now,” said Eades. “You don’t have to stand up to someone after the whistle to prove you’re a man anymore. We hit, we play physical, but I call it ‘honest tough.’ You go into the corner and you take a hit to make the play, and you don’t have to turn around and give the guy a shot because he hit you.
“It’s a different game from when I played. I was more into instantaneously getting even. But if you watch our team, we’ve averaged four penalties a game this year. We go to the net and there’s a whistle, we pull up, no trash-talking. And we hit, and finish our checks, but the sticks are down and the elbows are down. Teams respect us for that.”
That is a marked contrast in Eades’ attitude from his first few Warroad teams, right up until the last couple of years. This team is not bristling with offensive firepower, but it plays smothering, stifling defensive team hockey.
Warroad outshot Farmington 23-16, and while the Warriors came back with great discipline to not only take out the Tiger rushers but seal them off from reentering the play, it doesn’t mean that McFarlane had an easy night all the way through the shutout. Twice in succession, Farmington had great scoring chances off Warroad turnovers, when it was 1-0.
That goal had come when Monshaugen rushed up the left side, 2-on-2, and lagged a long, soft pass ahead to the right, where only linemate Mitch Thortsen could reach it. Thortsen put out the extra effort to get to the puck and fired a quick shot. Bernie Reis blocked it, but Monshaugen got to the crease just in time to convert the rebound.
But Farmington countered when Kevin Lugowski broke free and came in all alone, but McFarlane snared it with his glove. Moments later, David Schultz broke in with a turnover, but McFarlane gave him nothing, and smothered the shot in his midsection.
“I was there flat-footed on the first breakaway,” said McFarlane. “If he’d gone to the side, he might have had me. But he shot right into my glove. The second one, I was there and he shot it right into me too.”
Farmington’s next good try for the equalizer came when John Feely shot off the goal pipe in the third period, and later, Schultz had another chance with a goal-mouth set up by McFarland stopped the one-timer.
By then, Monshaugen had scored again for a 2-0 lead. Tyrone Cole fired a slapshot from the right point, and the Monshaugen, a junior winger, knocked in the rebound at 9:32.
“We had a few chances,” said Farmington coach Shawn Anderson. “They’ve got a great club. You touch the puck in their end, you know you’re going to get hit. But the elbows aren’t up, it was all clean. We weren’t here to play close, we were here to win. But they were definitely better defensively than any team we’ve played. I’d like to get the video of this and use it for an instructional film.”
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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