Roseville 5, Burnsville 0
[Please fix the overall tournament lead to have Duluth playing ROSEVILLE in tonight’s 9:15 semifinal…And use this as a folo.]
ROSEVILLE 5,
BURNSVILLE 0
In the opening day finale, the Curtin sisters put on a show as Roseville avenged the only mark on its otherwise-perfect season by beating Burnsville 5-0.
The Raiders scored three goals in a 1:16 span late in the third period to break open a tight, 2-0 game. Ronda Curtin scored two of those three to complete a hat trick in the game, while sister Renee settled for just one goal, and Jodi Winters made 18 saves for the shutout.
Burnsville had tied the Raiders in the South St. Paul holiday tournament, and, after a scoreless sudden-death period, beat Roseville in a shootout. By high school rules, the game counts as a tie, so the Raiders are now 25-0-1 for the season to Burnsville’s 17-5-4.
Curtin sisters escaped from determined containment attempts by Burnsville to set the tone. Senior Ronda Curtin, the favorite to be named Ms. Hockey on Sunday, scored the only goal of the first period, at 14:12, wnen she faked goaltender Andrea Smith down at the right post, then zipped around behind the net to score on the wraparound at the left post.
Sophomore Renee Curtin made it 2-0 in the first minute of the second period. Stationed 5 feet to the left of the crease, the younger Curtin sister watched the puck come in from Leah Peyer to Erika Mortensen, and the sophomore sent the puck across the goal-mouth. Renee Curtin stepped in and, with a flick of her wrists, snapped a backhander almost straight up, bulging the netting in the roof of the goal at 0:59.
With 4:21 left in the third period, Ronda Curtin moved in on the left side and rifled a power-play shot into the left edge. Forty seconds later, Ronda circled in center ice and broke in on the right, scoring from the circle. And 35 seconds later, Alyson Sundberg completed the scoring.
Bulldogs shut out Seawolves…and tie
The good news was that UMD goaltender Tony Gasparini shut out the Alaska-Anchorage Seawolves on Saturday night.
The bad news is that the Bulldogs, likewise, failed to score.
The result was yet another weird chapter in this season of frustration by the hard-working Bulldogs, who had lost the Friday opener 5-3 under more curious circumstances.
“We got a point without scoring a goal Saturday night,” said UMD coach Mike Sertich, whose team has only 10 points in 22 WCHA games this season. “We played pretty well Saturday night.”
The Bulldogs were outshot 36-31 in the scoreless game, which was the fourth 0-0 tie in WCHA history, with three of those involving Alaska-Anchorage.
“They were pretty aggressive, but we didn’t have the kind of individual breakdowns that killed us Friday night.”
If individual breakdowns in decision-making or defensive coverage hurt the Bulldogs, so did another in a series of strange goal calls that have conspired to foul up the ‘Dogs all season. Twice this season goals that were clearly in the goal were declared nongoals, when UMD had apparently scored. Saturday night, there was a different twist on the scenario, but again it was UMD that paid the price.
After leading 1-0 and 2-1, the Bulldogs were victimized by three goals in a five-minute span that vaulted the Seawolves to a 4-2 lead and an eventual 5-3 victory. But the fourth goal came after a scramble, when bodies piled up near the crease, Gasparini was down, and play stopped.
Referee Buzz Christensen discussed the situation, then talked to the goal judge, then declared a goal for the Seawolves.
“That one still hasn’t gone in,” said Sertich. “So they get a goal that wasn’t in…I guess that’s just another part of this year.”
Often, the weather in Anchorage is milder than in Minnesota, because of ocean wind currents. Last weekend, it was frigid, below zero, in Anchorage. The Bulldogs left at 2 a.m. Sunday morning, after the game, and flew to Seattle, then to Minneapolis, where they boarded a bus for the ride home. The trek finished in Duluth at around 4:30 p.m.
Back home in the DECC this weekend, the Bulldogs will face Michigan Tech Friday and Saturday, in a battle of the WCHA’s eighth and ninth teams. The Bulldogs are 3-15-4 in ninth place, while Tech is 7-15 in eighth.
If UMD has any hope of rising from the cellar, this weekend is pivotal, because the ‘Dogs trail Tech by four points and have only six games remaining. After Tech, UMD has a weekend off, then entertains Minnesota before going to Colorado College to end the regular season.
The Bulldogs claimed their first two WCHA victories by sweeping Tech 5-2 and 6-2 in Houghton back in early December. The Huskies are fresh from being swept by first-place North Dakota, after being swept at Minnesota two weeks ago.
COLLEGE PUCK NOTES/Duluth’s Dave Spehar made the trip to Colorado College with Minnesota last week, but coach Doug Woog didn’t have him dress for the Friday game. Spehar has eight goals, but none at even strength, despite generating several scoring chances for himself each game. Woog said on the game’s broadcast that the staff decided which players to dress to give the Gophers the best chance to win. Apparently, the staff decided it didn’t need goal-scorers. At any rate, after the Gophers offered little resistance in losing 5-1, the coaches decided to dress Spehar for the second game, although they did not decide to bench the 19 players who failed to score Friday. The Gophers lost 2-1 Saturday, and stand in seventh place at 7-10-3 for 17 points.
Harvard’s women’s hockey team is ranked No. 1 in the nation, but had never beaten New Hampshire until Saturday night, when the Crimson beat UNH 4-2 amid a flurry of significant performances. Goaltender Alison Kuusisto, a freshman from Duluth, got her third start and won the game; Angie Francisco of Duluth scored the goal that lifted Harvard into a 2-2 tie; and A. J. Mleczko scored her 18th goal and added her 41st and 42nd assists for 60 points, breaking the school single-season record of 57 points, set last year by Francisco.
Sanya Sandahl
SANYA SANDAHL/ATHLETE OF THE WEEK
School: Duluth Central.
Team: Duluth Dynamite
Sport: Girls hockey
Quick stats: The Dynamite reached the state tournament with their first Section 8 girls hockey championship in a 4-3 victory over Hibbing. While compiling a 20-4-1 season, Duluth was outshot quite often, but the goaltending of Sandahl rendered it meaningless. Hibbing outshot Duluth 31-18 in the section final, but Sandahl’s 28 saves secured the victory.
For the season, the senior — and the only Central participant on the Dynamite team that also includes East and Denfeld girls — has a 1.30 goals-against average and a save percentage of 94. She never played hockey until eighth grade, but now has hopes to study, and play goal, at an eastern college, maybe Princeton or Cornell.
Coach’s quote:
“Sometimes we don’t play our best unless we’re facing a top team, but Sanya is always consistent. It seems like our players get overlooked when it comes to post season awards, so it’s great to see Sanya as a finalist for the top senior goaltender award.”
—Jack Shearer, Dynamite coach.
Exceptional defensemen lead puck powers
Goal-scorers get the glory, and goaltenders become instant heroes, that’s the easy part of watching a hockey game. But both the scorers and the savers depend on their defensemen for their success.
On some teams, defensemen are ordered to stay at home and defend. On others, they may fly up the ice to join the offense. On all of them, it is up to the defensemen to clear the zone with crisp passes, giving their goaltenders a moment of peace and starting the rushes toward the other end all at the same time.
Many times, defensemen can be unsung and overlooked. Not this year. While this has been a season of unexcelled strength in numbers among Up North area high school hockey teams in both Classes AA and A, it also has been dominated by a crop of defensemen that may be unmatched in recent history.
It would be possible to fill an entire roster with all-star selections from Section 7AA and 7A.
Consider the Duluth area. Perennial power Duluth East struggled to a 2-2 start when senior defenseman Anunti was out with a preseason injury. When he came back, he stabilized the defense and the Greyhounds took off on a 10-game winning streak. And even when they struggled late in the season, it wasn’t because of their defense, but their goal-scoring that wavered.
Coach Mike Randolph’s method for getting the offense untracked took a novel twist: He moved top scoring forwards Ross Carlson and Nick Licari back to defense for one game, a 4-3 victory over Grand Rapids, then moved them back up front and the ‘Hounds crushed Cloquet 7-1.
“Now Ross and Nick keep asking me if they can go back to defense,” said Randolph. “They loved it.”
No such movement was necessary for Hermantown, which made a run at the Lake Superior Conference championship by upsetting East 4-3 to climax a superb season. The Hawks top line of Jon Francisco, Andy Corran and Chris Baron does most of the scoring, but the Hawks didn’t really get rolling until senior J.R. Bradley came off a long dose of mono that caused him to miss three weeks of school as well as a month of hockey.
“He had two goals and two assists in our first game, then he went out,” said coach Bruce Plante. “At 6-3 and 220, he’s a great skater, and obviously he makes a difference in our team.”
While Hermantown is the favorite in section 2A, Silver Bay and Marshall are two Lake Superior Conference teams who will challenge defending state champ Eveleth-Gilbert in 7A. And their defense will not rest.
Silver Bay has John Conboy, a strong, forceful senior who has accepted a scholarship to play at UMD in the fall. He rarely leaves the ice, staying out as long as his wind will last, and capable of dominating play at both ends of the rink. When he seems to be spent defending, the puck pops loose and Conboy will race up the rink to generate attacks.
“It’s the fifth year he’s played for us,” said Mariner coach Mike Guzzo. “Sometimes he sits back a little against another team’s top line, but he’s so fast, he really helps our offense.”
At Marshall, the Hilltoppers resurgence under coach Brendan Flaherty was smoldering until Tomaino decided that playing at prep school wasn’t for him, and he transfered home from Faribault Shattuck. After sitting out for two weeks, Tomaino stepped onto the ice and the junior blueliner’s forceful presence both offensively and defensively caused the Toppers to flare into a genuine sectional threat.
On the Iron Range, Eveleth was going for its second straight IRC title behind the scoring of the explosive Andy Sacchetti, but Book’Em Heitzman — he’s really Dan Heitzman, but goes by the name “Book’Em” Heitzman after the “Book ’em, Daniel” line from the old television show Hawaii Five-O — is responsible for getting the puck up to the big line and plays in every pressure situation.
The Golden Bears suffered a stunning 5-0 loss to Greenway last Saturday. Ninth-grade forwards Gino Guyer and Andy Sertich team with senior Josh Miskovich on the first line, which scored four of the five Greenway goals. But the solid Raider defense, led by Geisler’s rushing and puck-moving, is equally impressive.
Hibbing gained a tie with Greenway for the title by beating Eveleth-Gilbert 5-4 Tuesday in an overtime thriller. Hibbing’s strength is three lines that keep coming at foes with unwavering balance. But most of the goals are scored when the tandem of Suihkonen and Fatticci on the ice.
It was Fatticci who broke across the blue line and rifled his second goal of the game into the Eveleth goal at 2:26 of overtime Tuesday. He’s headed for Bemidji State’s new Division 1 program in the fall. Suihkonen, a lanky, stickhandling rusher with a hard shot is heading for Alaska-Anchorage. Hibbing coach Mark DeCenzo points to Erik Maras, an unheralded junior, as a key defensive defenseman.
Unlike Hibbing’s two Division 1 recruited defensemen, Greenway’s seniors have no college offers yet., which puzzles Raider coach Pat Guyer.
“There is not a better senior player that we’ve played against than Josh Miskovich,” said Guyer. “If I was starting a team, he’d be my No. 1 choice.”
OK, coach, but he’s a forward. How about senior defenseman Geisler? “OK, I’d have to have two first choices,” Guyer said, hedging.
And then there’s Andy Johnson, the 6-6 giant who has signed a tender to play football at Minnesota, and Bryan Hanson, yet another senior. Johnson can seemingly poke-check from his goal to the blue line. “And defensively, Hanson might be the best of all,” said Guyer.
With the sectional playoffs starting next week, watch the headlines for the exploits of the forwards and goaltenders. But watch the defensemen to see which teams advance.
Duluth girls win tourney opener, 5-2
ST. PAUL, MINN.—
The Duluth Dynamite overcame first-game, first-tournament jitters Thursday night, and skated to a 5-2 victory over Mankato East/West at the State Fair Coliseum.
Leah Wrazidlo scored two goals for the Dynamite (21-4-1) who advance to tonight’s semifinals against the winner of the final opening-day round between Roseville and Burnsville.
The game kicked off the first day’s evening session, after the tournament opened with a record single-session girls tournament crowd of 4,462 watching South St. Paul upend No. 1 and previously undefeated Park Center in a 3-2 thriller. Park Center star Krissy Wendell scored two goals — the 101st and 102nd of her junior season — but both came after South St. Paul had built a 3-0 lead, and the more team-oriented Packers stormed into tonight’s first semifinal against Bloomington Jefferson, which broke a 3-3 tie on Emily Naslund’s second goal of the game to beat stubborn Mounds View 4-3.
Duluth, playing for the first time in the five-year old tournament, had some jittery players before the game, but seemed to conquer those nerves with a three-goal first period. After building the 3-0 lead, however, the Dynamite seemed to sag, and Mankato battled back with a pair of second-period goals to cut the lead to 3-2.
“I think we got the 3-0 lead and then turned complacent,” said Duluth coach Jack Shearer. “We do that, we’re so doggone up and down. We are consistent about being inconsistent. But the big thing was, we came here and we wanted to win the first game to stay on the championship side of the tournament, and we did that.”
Wrazidlo whistled in the first goal by deflecting a Rose Babst shot from center point at 4:13 of the first period.
Tresa Lamphier scored barely a minute later on a high flip from just across the blue line on the right boards. Mankato goaltender Nitara Frost, who made 29 stops as her team was outshot 34-11 for the game, had trouble playing the high flip, which bounced at her feet and short-hopped between her pads at 5:17.
“That one was kind of cheesey,” said Lamphier, who now has 45 goals for the season. Asked if she and her teammates felt a little jittery, Lamphier said: “Not a little; a LOT.”
Rachel Goodwin skated in to score with a loose puck in the slot at 9:59 for the 3-0 Duluth lead, and a 14-3 edge in shots for the session.
But Amy Egli scored at 3:13 of the second for Mankato (17-7-1), and Nicole Hottinger converted a broken play at 8:16 with a quick shot that beat goaltender Sanya Sandahl, and suddenly it was 3-2.
The Dynamite turned up the pressure then, with Meghen Stotts scoring on a rebound at 12:50 for breathing room at 4-2. With 1:38 remaining, Wrazidlo angled across the slot and scored with a power-play backhand to complete the scoring. Unlike her teammates, Wrazidlo said she wasn’t nervous at the start.
“I wasn’t nervous at all, until after my first shift, then it hit me,” said the senior from Denfeld. “The first goal was nice, because it got us going. But their first goal went off my right skate, right to their other girl, who scored.
“We definitely let up when it was 3-0. We’ve done that all too often, and we know we can’t do that in the semifinals if we hope to win.”
SOUTH ST. PAUL 3,
PARK CENTER 2
After eliminating Eagan and star Natalie Darwitz 1-0 in the section final, South St. Paul (25-1)played giant-killer again against Wendell, who scored with two seconds left in the second period, and again on a 15-foot missile 2:03 into the third.
“We knew we had the firepower, but they shut us down,” said Wendell. “They had a great defensive team. Offensively, I didn’t think they had that much firepower, but they sure did today. They won every loose puck, and they just outplayed us.”
With Wendell’s 100 goals triggering a 25-0 season, the challenge was obvious for South St. Paul, with the balance of senior Sarah Ahlquist in goal, freshman Ashley Albrecht on defense and fifth-year senior center Kelly Kegley as architect of the Packer offense.
Albrecht moved in from left point and scored with a high slapshot over the glove of goalie Amy Jones and into the right corner at 2:36 of the first period. Kegley, who had played heads-up against Darwitz and faced Wendell after she moved up from defense to play center in the third period, came through with exceptional plays on the other two goals, both scored by Erika Hockinson. Twice, after being knocked flat, Kegley managed to sweep passes to Hockinson, who scored in the last minute of the first period and at 9:02 of the second.
“We’ve kind of been underdogs all year, so that might help us,” said Kegley. “We knew they had a great team, but we also knew they hadn’t played as strong a schedule as we had.”
It became immediately obvious that Park Center’s chances hinged on Wendell’s determination to make one-player attacks from end to end. Packers coach Dave Palmquist anticipated Wendell would try to keep the puck, and flawlessly prepared his defense to force her to the inside and then clutter the slot to keep her from the net. That strategy kept Park Center from getting a single shot through to Alquist for the first 12 minutes, and the Pirates, who had only trailed Duluth and Jefferson all season, and then only by one goal and only for a short duration, wound up trailing 3-0, and against the best foe they’ve faced all season.
“We had scrimmaged South St. Paul early, and Krissy scored eight or nine goals, and we won eight or nine to nothing,” said Park Center coach John Donovan. “But we may have caught them by surprise. Today, their defense didn’t give us anything in the middle. And when Krissy was rushing from defense, their backcheckers had time to stay with her. So I moved her up to center in the third period, and I think it worked to allow her to get away from the backcheckers.”
It worked, but only to a point. “By the end of the second period, all I said to the team was, ‘Don’t let 15 [Wendell’s number] beat us.’ After facing Darwitz and Wendell back to back, we’ve seen it all. Now we can just focus on playing our game.”
JEFFERSON 4,
MOUNDS VIEW 3
Jefferson (21-4-1) had to overcome some flu and mono that had knocked several players either out of the lineup or to reduced roles throughout the Section 6 tournament. Once on the Coliseum rink, though, the Jaguars got an opening goal from junior defenseman Bethany Petersen, who had missed all but one period of the last three games with illness.
But underdog Mounds View (15-10-1) came back strong when Lindsey Ogren scored midway through the opening period and Jenny Lovelle converted a set-up from Diane Carigiet in the last minute of the first period, for a 2-1 lead.
Naslund scored on a rush after a pass from Petersen midweay through the second period to lift the Jaguars to a 2-2 tie, and eighth-grader Natalie Turgeon scored on a rebound to give Jefferson a 3-2 edge in the last minute of the second period. Lisa Sullivan got the 3-3 tie for Mounds View on a rebound at 5:45 of the third, but Naslund knocked in a loose puck at the crease after Petersen’s wraparound had been stopped at 7:53. That one proved to be the eventual game-winner.
“I’ve got about six or seven goals for the season,” said Naslund, last fall’s state cross-country champion. “These two definitely were the biggest.”
To say nothing of the most timely.
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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