Something is missing from AA tournament
Maybe it’s just a weird year. The 55th Minnesota High School Hockey Tournament for boys will be held in Minneapolis instead of St. Paul, at Target Center instead of the torn-down-but-soon-to-be-rebuilt Civic Center, and fans will find more congestion, less parking and higher prices awaiting them.
But strangest of all will be the unprecedented absence of a Duluth or Iron Range Conference team from the Class AA field.
Hockey fans here in Up North territory can indeed be thankful for the Class A tournament, where Hermantown and Silver Bay can be counted on to carry the Up North colors in prideful fashion.
But in Class AA, Iron Range and Duluth teams, which accounted for19 of the first 36 championships and six more titles in the seven years of two-level tournaments — including both AA and A last year — will not be represented. Hibbing, Duluth East and Greenway were all powerful threats, but they yielded the Section 7AA championship to Elk River last week.
It will be the first time in tournament history that neither an Iron Range nor Duluth area team won Region or Section 7 and therefore will not be represented among the elite field of eight Class AA entries, and no less than Elk River coach Tony Sarsland thinks that’s inexcusable.
“It’s ridiculous that we have to play in Section 7,” said Sarsland, after his team beat Duluth East in the semifinals and Hibbing in a three-overtime classic final. “The Iron Range and Duluth schools are why the tournament is there. They put it on the map. We’re not a Range team, we belong in Section 4. The teams up here, this is what they live for. My heart goes out to ’em. It’s baloney.”
Roseau is about as far north as you can get, but even though the Rams from Section 8 are favored along with Hastings, Elk River and Hill-Murray for the Class AA title, their appearance won’t come close to soothing the pain in Section 7.
Often overlooked as a subsidiary event to the “big school” tournament, this year, the Class A event for smaller programs will carry at least as much entertainment value this year as their larger and more publicized AA rivals.
Hermantown (21-3-1) was state runner-up last year to Eveleth-Gilbert, and will ride into Wednesday’s opening round as one of the tournament favorites, even though folks south of Cambridge may assume that Benilde-St. Margaret’s (23-2) is the favorite. Conveniently, we’ll soon find out who is right, because Hermantown takes on Benilde in the 7:05 p.m. opening round game at Target Center.
The overwhelming choice as Cinderella team for the week is Silver Bay (18-5-2), which is the smallest school (135 students) in the state to have a hockey team, but the Mariners, from the smallest town (1,800), hope the attention on their Cinderella status may cause their skill level and forceful style to be overlooked by opponents.
The Mariners will face East Grand Forks (14-10-1) in the 12:05 p.m. first game of Wednesday’s first round. That second Class A game has ((((Blake (19-5-1)/Breck (19-6)))) meeting upstart St. Thomas Academy (15-10).
Wednesday night’s evening session has the Hermantown-Benilde clash followed by Fergus Falls (15-7-1) against Red Wing (19-4-2).
The Class A semifinals are Friday at 12:05 and 2:45 p.m., and the final is Saturday at 2 p.m.
In Class AA, Eden Prairie (18-7) opens at 12:05 p.m. Thursday against colorful Holy Angels (24-1), the Cinderella team in AA, but a private school that has become a stronghold of hockey in recent years, as Richfield’s answer to Hill-Murray.
Roseau (23-1) takes on Rochester Mayo (22-3-1) at 2:05 Thursday, with the evening session promising a pair of slugfests, with Elk River (22-3) facing Hill-Murray (21-3-1) at 7:05 and Hastings (21-4) favored against Blaine (21-4) in the 9:45 finale to the first round.
Class AA semifinals are at 7:05 and 9:45 p.m. Friday, with the championship game at 8:15 p.m. Saturday.
As usual, the hockey tournament is guaranteed to be filled with surprises and spectacular performances and plays. But if something seems missing, it will be the Duluth and Iron Range entries in Class AA. It would be a good year for a cynic to organize an NIT (Northern Invitational Tournament) at the DECC, with Duluth East, Hibbing, Greenway and Eveleth playing a round robin.
More realistically, University of Minnesota coach Doug Woog put it best, suggesting the high school league should find a way to assure Up North teams a place in the tournament.
“They’ve made some rules to protect the new programs in the southern part of the state,” said Woog. “But they should also make rules to protect the tradition and heritage of Northern Minnesota teams. They can protect the past while looking ahead to the future.”
Playoff finality comes too soon
The Section 2A hockey tournament is a Saturday semifinal and Tuesday final from completion, but Thursday night’s Hermantown-Proctor game may prove to have been the deciding game, even though it was “only” a quarterfinal.
There is no such thing as “only” when it comes to state hockey sectional playoffs. Whatever round it is, it’s the harsh reality of win-or-else. Advance, or turn in your gear for the season.
Hermantown had a first-round bye, awaiting its old neighborhood rival. Proctor already had to play a game, Tuesday night.
The Proctor ice arena is a classic old building. You enter a lobby area, where people flock between periods to warm up by the concession stand, or they go upstairs to a meeting room that provides a warm, glassed-in view from one end.
Ah, but in the arena itself, the chill of the ice slaps you in the face as you look out from behind one net. The main bleacher seats are around to the right, the player’s boxes to the left. The walls are covered with aging panels of insulation, to keep the cold IN, not OUT. And there are great, bright lights, the kind of lights that the builders of the sparkling new Cloquet arena should examine and duplicate to improve the dusk-like dimness of their state-of-the-art facility, where the seating area is brighter than the ice surface.
Walking around to the left, toward the players benches, you pass a small, corner perch where the pep band is stationed. As long as there aren’t too many in the band.
There are a couple rows of bleacher seats on that side, although when you walk along the boarded walkway between them and the boards you’re careful, because the walkway is at about a 15 percent slope.
As usual in an old, colorful arena, the ice is good, and therefore so is the speed of the game, and those watching it will enjoy it without need for sanitary, new accessories.
Hermantown and Proctor both branch off into Section 2A, which is good, because it gives Up North teams a chance for another berth in the state tournament, beyond just 7AA and 7A. Hermantown and Proctor are, probably, the No. 1 and No. 2 teams in 2A, although Chisago Lakes has an impressive record, too. But Section 2A extends all the way to Mora, St. Cloud, Princeton and Monticello, and they decided to seed the section on the basis of east and west teams. Hermantown was East No. 1, Chisago Lakes East 2, Pine City East 3 and Proctor East 4. Cambridge is No. 1 in the West.
That meant Proctor — actually Proctor/AlBrook — had to play Moose Lake — actually Moose Lake/Willow River/Barnum/Cromwell — in an opening round game last Tuesday. That was unfortunate as a seeding location, particularly to Moose Lake, a good enough young team to deserve to play a team of more similar capabilities, for a chance at a memorable victory, rather than to face a team as strong as Proctor.
The trouble with such far-ranging seeding is that nobody from one end knows much about the other, and the West end could have teams with .500 records seeded high. Chisago Lakes had merit enough to be seeded high in the East, with an impressive 7-5 victory over Marshall at Pioneer Hall a couple of weeks ago.
Marshall coach Brendan Flaherty admitted afterward that the Chisago Lakes game would be the only one that was a break from conference play, so he played all of his seniors, including his backup goaltender. The 7-5 loss was meaningless, compared to the wonderful gesture of giving his seniors a night to cherish always. It turned out to be more than meaningless, perhaps, inhibiting Marshall’s seeding a bit in 7A and enhancing Chisago Lakes’ seeding in 2A.
Because of their schedule, the Proctor Rails probably should have been seeded No. 2, with the chance to meet Hermantown in the final.
As it is, though, they won’t have to give back any memories from that first-round night in the Proctor Arena, where the chill was broken by the aroma of several platters of barbecued food their parents prepared and carried to a post-game feast upstairs.
The Rails earned the celebration, however brief, because they were flying that night, out on that cold slab of ice.
Aaron Slattengren, a swift, forceful junior, scored on a wraparound after only 14 seconds had elapsed from when Jay Dardis took the opening faceoff. Slattengren then beat the defense with a great pass that sent Dardis, a lanky, creative centerman, in for a 2-0 lead exactly four minutes later.
Slattengren scored on a breakaway to start the second period, and Ryan Morgando and Richie Upton scored 11 seconds apart to make it 5-0 before Joe Danelski, a strapping 6-3, 230-pound defenseman, hammered one in for Moose Lake. In the third period, Jack Hom, Dardis and Matt Ogston added goals as the Rails sent the game into running time for an 8-1 final.
It was an impressive display, as Dardis, a senior center committed to St. Cloud State after a year in the USHL, and Slattengren each scored two goals and four assists in the game. Junior Corey Lonke had 23 saves for Proctor, but everyone knew he’d face a lot more shots against Hermantown.
Still, the Dardis-Upton-Slattengren line would be a challenge for Hermantown’s Jon Francisco-Chris Baron-Andy Corran top line. Hermantown coach Bruce Plante knew that, which is why Plante was there in the chill of Proctor Arena, checking out the proceedings.
The Proctor-Hermantown game would have been a fitting final in Section 2A. It figured to be a great game no matter when, but the quarterfinals were just too early for either one of them to be finished, and to already be savoring memories of more successful nights.
Greatest tournament of all — 30 years ago
For all of us who are still teenagers at heart, it seems incomprehensible tht 30 years have passed since the 1969 Minnesota state hockey tournament captivated the entire state with some of the most indelible memories in the glorious, 55-year history of the state’s premier sports event.
That was the 25th year of hockey tournaments, and it had outgrown its wonderful but aging roots in the old St. Paul Auditorium, where teams from Eveleth and International Falls had displayed dynasties in the sport. The last two tournaments in the old, dark, cavernous Auditorium were won by Greenway of Coleraine, led by a pint-sized centerman named Mike Antonovich. They won it his sophomore year, and they won it his junior year.
But the Minnesota North Stars had been born by then, and their owners built a magnificent new structure, Metropolitan Sports Center, in Bloomington. So while tradition might have cried out for the tournament to stay in the Auditorium, logic moved it for 1969 to Met Center, where twice the attendance was assured, proving the tournament was the biggest attraction and could support virtually all other high school league activities. That move also may have influenced St. Paul to build the “new” Civic Center to regain the tournament’s traditional site.
But in ’69 at the Met, the field was magical. The Northern Minnesota teams were intimidating in their immense skill level, and the only time a Northern team failed to win the state title in the tournament’s first 25 years was when St. Paul Johnson won titles in 1947, 1953, 1955 and 1963 — rude intrusions into an Up North tradition.
Greenway was back, with Antonovich as a senior and Tom Peluso a junior, hungry for its third straight title, and nobody would pick against the Raiders. Roseau had an exceptional team, led by players like Earl Anderson, who would go onto stardom at North Dakota, and John Harris, who went on to become captain at the University of Minnesota, and later to play a little golf.
But in those days, the northern area was represented by Region 3, the famous “back door” to assure the proper skill level of tournament play by augmenting Region 7 and Region 8 with another entry, to be determined by a game between the runners-up of Regions 7 and 8. In 1969, Greenway had beaten an Eveleth team with Pete LoPresti in goal in the Region 7 final, and Roseau had beaten Warroad, with a young team led by a tall, dark, and tireless Chippewa Indian superstar named Henry Boucha.
He was called “BOO-she” around Warroad, “BOO-shaw” to those from farther away than Roseau, and “Boo-SHAY” — with a French-Canadian twist — once he made it to the National Hockey League with the Detroit Red Wings. But in 1969, the rest of the state south of Moorhead was close to not ever seeing Boucha play. Turns out, Boucha scored a goal with a blistering long shot with one second to go in overtime to beat LoPresti and Eveleth in the Region 3 final.
The Twin Cities was represented in that tournament by a St. Paul Harding team that had provided the only break in an eight-year regional dominance by St. Paul Johnson; by Mounds View; by a Minneapolis Southwest team led by junior goalie Brad Shelstad and his all-state older brother Dixon Shelstad; by traditional power South St. Paul; and by Edina, a speedy and classy team led by mercurial Bobby Krieger, but carrying the load of never having won a tournament.
Roseau polished off Harding 4-1 in the tournament’s opening game, then it was time for Warroad to take the ice against Southwest. On the opening faceoff, Southwest’s Indians flung the puck deep into the right corner of the Warroad zone. A purple-and-white forechecker raced in at Boucha, the tall, No. 16 defenseman. Boucha seemed unaware, but he was totally aware, and he made an instaneous little move, reversing the puck with a tap off the corner boards, pivoting in a flash to regain possession five feet behind himself, and darted up ice while the forechecker wondered how the puck disappeared.
The crowd, as if one, emitted an audible gasp at the move. Warroad went on to win the game 4-3, and the entire crowd, and the thousands more watching on television, were captivated by Boucha and his youthful henchmen in black.
Edina whipped overmatched Mounds View 5-0 in the first night game, and South St. Paul, comparatively unheralded, got spectacular goaltending performance from Mark Kronholm and upset Greenway 4-3, leaving Antonovich and his fellow Raiders in tears in the dressing room, their quest for a third straight title devastated.
In the semifinals, Warroad overturned its Region 8 title loss by beating Roseau 3-2, and it became evident that the Warriors, with only two seniors, had more than just Henry Boucha — although having Henry Boucha also seemed to be enough. Edina, with coach Willard Ikola letting loose a never-ending stream of swift skaters, buried South St. Paul 7-1 in the second semifinal.
Covering that tournament for the Minneapolis Tribune, my lead on the overview story of the semifinals promised that it would be “The Lightning against the Legend” in the final, with Edina’s overwhelming speed against Boucha’s instant legendary status.
As appetizers, Greenway came back to win the consolation title, beating Southwest 3-2, and Antonovich wound up with seven goals and one assist out of Greenway’s 10 tournament goals to lead the event in scoring. South St. Paul nipped Roseau 4-3 in the third-place game.
Then it was time. Tiny Warroad, with the instantly and totally beloved Henry Boucha, would face Edina for the title. A storybook couldn’t have been written this way; it would have been too unrealistic.
Harsh reality, however, was to come. To most observers, a cruel Edina team knocked out Boucha with a flagrant cheapshot, which left the crowd in an extremely hostile mood. The section at Met Center housing the Edina section seemed to shrink against the boos and hoots of the rest of the world. First off, there was Edina’s vast, West Suburban wealth, against Warroad’s small-town, blue-collar-ethic workers from the northwoods. And they took out the Legend, the Indian kid, as well.
Reality was that defenseman Jim Knutson had a chance for a heavy bodycheck on Boucha in the second period — one of the only times in the game or even the season that Boucha was vulnerable for such a hit — and he made the most of it, with a leaping, extra-forceful bodycheck along the boards. Almost any opponent would have done the same. But on this hit, Knutson’s elbow hit Boucha on the side of his helmeted head. He was knocked out. The shocking thing was that Boucha, who was impossible to stop, didn’t come back. He suffered an ear injury that would send him to the hospital.
However, forgotten in many memories was that Warroad was behind 4-2 at the time. So even with Boucha in the lineup, and rarely leaving the ice as he moved from defense to forward, and then back to defense for moments of “rest,” the Warriors were in jeopardy of losing.
The crowd and the remaining Warriors seemed lifted to an emotional binge in the aftermath of Boucha’s departure, however, and, led by players such as Alan Hangsleben, and Lyle Kvarnlov, Warroad battled back against seemingly hopeless odds to gain a 4-4 tie. There would be overtime. The electricity that filled the place, and had filled it since that first, sudden move by Boucha on opening day, would not leave.
Hangsleben, a sophomore defenseman, incredibly stepped up to fill Boucha’s role of puck-rusher and constant threat. But in the end, the valiant Warriors and the enormous, emotional crowd, was not enough. Skip Thomas scored at 3:09 of sudden-death overtime, and Edina won 5-4. It was a magnificent, incredible finish to what might be the most memorable tournament of all time.
And that’s the sort of thing that brings Minnesota hockey fans and casual observers back, and makes this the greatest sports event in the state, this year and every year. As great as that tournament was, there is always room for a more spectacular one. And this year could be it. We just have to wait and see.
Jefferson upsets South St. Paul in 2 OTs
The Duluth Dynamite knew it was a night for upsets, after watching the first state girls hockey tournament semifinal go two overtimes, with Bloomington Jefferson upsetting favored South St. Paul 3-2 at the State Fairgrounds Coliseum.
But that double-overtime first semifinal meant the Duluth entry would have to play powerful Roseville until after midnight in the second semifinal to determine Jefferson’s foe in tonight’s state championship game.
Lindsey Christensen was stationed near the right pipe at 12:44 of the second sudden-death overtime when her Jefferson teammate Sharon Cole fired a hard pass to the crease from deep in the left corner. The pass hit South St. Paul defenseman Ashley Albrecht’s skate and glanced toward the right post.
“The puck was sitting right on the goal line,” said Christensen, a senior who had scored five goals all season. “I couldn’t believe it. I tapped it, and it barely moved. It was on the goal line, and it barely went across the line. It never got to the back of the net.”
No matter. It crossed the line and that was all that mattered. Jefferson, despite being outshot 38-26, got the best goaltending job of junior Dana Hergert’s life, and upset South St. Paul 3-2 to reach tonight’s state championship game.
Jefferson (22-4-1) never led during regulation, but forced the overtime with only 10 seconds remaining in the third period when junior Jessica Brandanger scored for a 2-2 tie amid a six-attacker scramble at the South St. Paul crease.
South St. Paul (25-2), which came into the tournament rated No. 4 by blanking Natalie Darwitz and No. 3 Eagan, and opened by shutting down No. 1 Park Center 3-2, dominated Bloomington Jefferson in the first period, outshooting the Jaguars 6-1, but couldn’t gain more than a 1-0 lead.
Ninth-grade defenseman Albrecht, another of the state’s brilliant junior-high-age players, moved up from defense with the teams each short a skater and banged in a rebound at 8:07 for the lone goal of the first period. It stayed 1-0 until the third period, when, at exactly 1:00, Jefferson sophomore Emily Naslund converted a 1-time deflection of Jessica Brandanger’s goal-mouth pass.
The Jaguar fans celebrated, but not for long. Just 31 seconds after it was tied, it was untied, when South St. Paul’s Jamie Staples moved up from the right point and drilled a 50-footer through goalie Dana Hergert.
The game intensified after that, with each team getting 11 shots in the final period, and more good chances per shift in the third period than there had been cumulatively through the more cautious first and second periods. Packer goaltender Sarah Ahlquist weathered repeated Jefferson scoring attempts, and when Hergert was pulled for a sixth Jaguar attacker, South St. Paul’s Erika Hockinson missed a try at the empty net.
Ahlquist faced a final flurry in regulation, making saves on Naslund and Chrissie Norwich at the crease, but Brandanger knocked the loose puck in from the scramble at 14:50, and, with the Duluth and Roseville players lined up to take the ice for second-semifinal practice, the tournament’s first overtime ensued instead.
CONSOLATION
Krissy Wendell, the first high school hockey player of any gender to score 100 goals in a single season, said it was difficult to come back from her Park Center team’s first loss of the season to play in Friday’s consolation semifinals. “But once the game started, we were OK,” said Wendell.
It was OK for Wendell and the Pirates, because Park Center beat Mounds View 6-5 in a suprisingly close game, in which Wendell scored all six of her team’s goals — a girls state tournament record for a single game — running her season total to 108, with today’s consolation final against Burnsville still to go.
Burnsville also had a surprisingly close game, getting goals from juniors Kristin Kattleman and Kate Barnett in the third period to overcome Mankato 2-0. Sophomore Andrea Smith got the shutout, making saves on all eight shots Mankato generated. That total of eight is the girls tournament record for fewest shots in a game.
Park Center, which entered the tournament ranked No. 1 with a 25-0 record, lost 3-2 to South St. Paul in the opening round Thursday to South St. Paul. Wendell, who had both goals in that one, too, helped raise her team to 25-1 by opening Friday’s game with goals at 0:36, 2:09 and 6:15 of the first period for a 3-0 lead before Jenny Levelle got one for Mounds View. Katie Deschneau scored a power-play goal for Mounds View to open the second period, but Wendell converted a Jessica Horn power-play feed for a 4-2 Park Center cushion at 5:10.
Wendell’s unassisted power-play goal made it 5-2 in the third, and after Jeanne Chapple and Lisa Bush scored for the Mustangs, Wendell ended her record-setting performance with a power-play goal at 10:14. Lindsey Ogren got the final goal for Mounds View, shorthanded at 11:59. The Mustangs outshot Park Center 31-26, but couldn’t contain Wendell.
Burnsville outshot Mankato East/West 29-8, but the Blaze couldn’t puncture Nitara Frost’s goaltending for two periods. Actually, the Blaze (18-5-4) scored twice earlier, but one was disallowed because the whistle had blown, and another for being directed in off a shinpad.
Dynamite retain old and start new tradition
ST. PAUL, MINN.—
The girls from Duluth East, Denfeld and Central who make up the Duluth Dynamite hockey team set out on a mission to reach their first state tournament this season. Having accomplished that, the Duluth team wanted to do more than just make it to the State Fair Coliseum event. They wanted to do something once they were in the final field.
They achieved all of the objectives by beating Mankato East/West 5-2 in Thursday’s opening round.
That sent them against tournament favorite Roseville in Friday night’s second semifinal, which promised to last until nearly midnight, after South St. Paul and Bloomington Jefferson met in the first semifinal. The date with Roseville was a game the Dynamite players hoped for, a chance to replay a regular-season game they had lost 5-4 in overtime against the undefeated Raiders.
But regardless of their destiny in the semifinals or beyond, their first-game success was something the Duluth skaters will cherish.
While the Dynamite are made up of a diverse blend of personalities from the three Duluth public schools, they also had an assortment of emotions going into their first-ever tournament, and they played them out to that opening victory, which hiked their season record to 21-4-1.
Leah Wrazidlo, a senior forward from Denfeld, scored two goals to lead the attack; Sanya Sandahl, a senior goaltender from Central, was victimized by two quick goals in the second period but returned to form to stabilize the Dynamite; Tresa Lamphier, a senior center from Denfeld, and Meghen Stotts, a sophomore center from East, each had a goal and an assist; and Becky Fisher, a freshman defenseman from East, had two assists.
In the process of breaking from tradition, the Duluth girl also maintained their tendency to leave coach Jack Shearer almost baffled by seeming to play alternately outstanding and lackadaisically, as if measuring their opponent and then playing accordingly.
Linemates Wrazidlo and Lamphier, for example, are the top two scorers on the team, but felt entirely different going in.
“I wasn’t nervous at all, until after my first shift, then it hit me,” said Wrazidlo. “The first goal was nice, because it got us going. I was OK after that.”
Fortunately, it came early, with Wrazidlo scoring by deflecting in a Rose Babst shot at 4:13 of the first period.
Lamphier was asked if she felt a little bit of jitters before the game.
“Not a little,” she said. “A lot.”
Lamphier, who had scored three straight hat tricks for nine of the team’s last 13 goals in the Section 8 games, got a weird goal at 5:17 to make it 2-0 over Mankato. She skated up the right side, crossed the blue line near the boards, then launched a high flip. “I was just trying to get it in deep,” she said.
Typically, though, she put it on goal. The high flip landed at the feet of goaltender Nitara Frost, and short-hopped between her pads.
“That one was kinda cheesey,” laughed Lamphier.
Junior winger Rachel Goodwin, from East, scored at 9:59 of the first period, skating hard up the slot and finding a loose puck, which she quickly deposited in the net.
Up 3-0, it appeared Duluth was headed for a rout. Instead, the Dynamite seemed to ease their intensity in the second period. Sandahl was left unprotected at 3:13 of the second period, and Mankato star Amy Egli sped around the defense and scored.
It didn’t seem too critical until, at 8:16 of the middle period, Kelsey Fitzgerald broke in for Mankato and nudged the puck to Jessica Steffen, who seemed to lose control in the slot. The puck squirted to the left, and ninth-grader Nicole Hottinger got off a quick shot to cut the margin to 3-2.
“It went off my right skate, right to their other girl, who scored,” said Wrazidlo. “We definitely let up when it was 3-0. We’ve done that all too often.”
That was coach Shearer’s point exactly.
“I think we got the 3-0 lead and then turned complacent,” said 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.”
Having outshot Mankato 14-3 in the first period, Duluth responded to the suddenly diminished lead by turning up the attack again. Fisher shot from long range, and Stotts banged in the rebound later in the middle period, and it was 4-2 after outshooting Mankato 10-5 in the session.
Again the Dynamite seemed to put it in cruise control with the comfort of a 4-2 lead. They squandered a power play to open the third period, but they made good on another extra-skater chance with 1:38 remaining, when Lamphier got the puck from freshman Becky Salyards for a shot. Wrazidlo pounced on the rebounding puck, angled across the slot from right to left, and drilled a backhander into the lower right corner of the net.
The 5-2 final score was less-decisive than the edge in shots of 34-11 for the game might have deserved. But it was almost as if the Dynamite didn’t want to spend any more effort or scoring than was required, perhaps realizing more would be necessary against stronger foes in the rest of the tournament.
Or, maybe they just didn’t want to give coach Shearer any room to relax.
OPENING SURPRISE
The opening day evening session drew 1,912 fans to the Coliseum, with Roseville blanking Burnsville 5-0 in the final game. Jodi Winters got the shutout, and senior Ronda Curtin scored three goals and her sophomore sister, Renee, added another.
The afternoon session drew a single-session girls tournament record of 4,462, with the feature attraction Park Center’s high-scoring Krissy Wendell against South St. Paul. The Packers surprised No. 1 ranked Park Center by jumping to a 3-0 lead, then holding Wendell to a pair of goals for a 3-2 victory. Ninth-grader Ashley Albrecht opened the scoring and Erika Hockinson made it 2-0 before the first period ended. Hockinson scored again at 9:02 of the second, with both her goals coming on setups by the falling Kelly Kegley, a fifth-year senior playmaking star.
Of more significance was South St. Paul coach Dave Palmquist’s strategy to clutter the middle to block Wendell from her favorite path to the net. It succeeded in preventing most of her shots from getting through, although she scored with two seconds left in the second period and again at 2:03 of the third, after coach John Donovan had moved her up from defense to center to free her from having to skate end-to-end.
“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 stability of senior Sarah Ahlquist in goal. But the Packers outshot Park Center 26-15 and while Wendell jacked up her goal total to 102, Park Center left the building 25-1 the same as South St. Paul’s more balanced team, which was still in the championship running.
Bloomington 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. Junior defenseman Bethany Petersen, who had missed all but one period of the last three games with illness, staked the Jaguars to an early lead, 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. Jefferson sophomore Emily Naslund and eighth-grader Natalie Turgeon regained the led at 3-2 in the second period, but after Lisa Sullivan tied it up for Mounds View in the third, Naslund scored off the rebound of Petersen’s wraparound try midway through the final period for the 4-3 victory.
“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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