3 Duluth hockey teams, no state titles
THREE DULUTH TEAMS, BUT NO STATE TITLE
By John Gilbert
Maybe it was just coincidence, but wandering around Xcel Energy Center last week at the 68th Minnesota State High School Hockey Tournament provided a unique perspective within a 24-hour span.
In the Class A quarterfinals on Wednesday, Marshall was crushed 7-0 by Breck, one of the two private school elephants in the Class A room, while Hermantown whipped Rochester Lourdes 7-2. On Thursday, Class AA took the big stage, and upsets ruled the day, as Maple Grove was beaten by Hill-Murray 5-2, and unseeded Moorhead took out Eagan 4-0 in the afternoon session.
In the first game press conference, Hill-Murray coach Bill Lechner, an outstanding coach, was asked about how Maple Grove made a couple of cute plays and got ahead 1-0, but the Pioneers threw some bodychecks and turned the game around for the 5-2 victory. “Cute won’t win games,” Lechner said. “It’s win moments, but not games.”
Very interesting way to put it, I thought, and the comment stayed with me as I walked around the concourse before the first night game, in which No. 1 seed Duluth East was about to take on Lakeville South. There was no question East was the best team in the state, and that coach Mike Randolph had painstakingly juggled through injuries and put them together to be primed and ready to go all the way, when I ran into a familiar face.
It was a man I knew, the parent of an East player, who wanted to introduce me to his wife. We talked for a while, about the afternoon’s upsets, and about East’s chances of going all the way. Everything is in place, I suggested, except maybe for one element.
“The only thing I worry about,” I said, “is that I’m a big believer in cosmic energy — positive kharma — that only comes from everyone pulling together in complete unity, and I’ve never sensed that all the parents, for example, were all behind the team, pulling for the team’s success.”
Though I had just met her for the first time, the man’s wife said, “That comes from the top…from Randolph.”
“What?” I said. “I’m just suggesting that all the parents may not be pulling together and you’re saying it’s the coach’s fault? You think that the person who could benefit the most from unity is responsible for hurting the unity? Do you realize you’re providing evidence of exactly what I’m talking about when I say I’m worried about kharma?”
She said: “Don’t blame the parents for a lack of unity.”
I was astounded. Her husband didn’t say much, but it was clear he supported her negative energy, and neither one of them seemed to grap the divisiveness they were contributing to, nor did they realize that in my theory of cosmic energy, the lack of unity is a factor even if nobody else hears it. At that instant, another man walked up to say hello to the guy I was talking to. He was grinning broadly as he said: “Isn’t this great? The greatest thing in the world is having played hockey, and coming down here every year to this tournament, that now I’m able to watch my son play in it.”
When they introduced him to me, he said he was the dad of a player on the Marshall team, which had been blown out 7-0 by Breck the day before. “How did they do today in consolation?” I asked. He told me Marshall had lost 5-4 to Little Falls.
“So they’re on the bus heading home,” he said. “But I asked my son what he thought of the whole thing, and he said, ‘It’s the greatest experience of my life.’ ”
I continued on my way, shaking my head about how the dad of a kid whose Marshall team came to state but went two-and-out claimed it was a great experience, just to be part of a team that made it to state, but that the negative vibes emanating from the parents of a kid on the No. 1 ranked Duluth East team reverberated even before the Hounds opening game. As I got on the elevator to head for the press box, I reflected on how difficult it is for Randolph to blend his players into impressive unity in those dressing rooms all around the state, while having to overcome those outside influences that seem to be decidedly negative.
Kharma may not have had anything to do with it when unheralded Lakeville South overcame a 1-0 East lead and claimed a 3-2 victory, but you can’t convince me of that. By the way, when it was 3-1 in the final minute, the way I saw it was Dominic Toninato won a left-corner faceoff, Jake Randolph got off a shot that hit Lakeville South goalie Tyler Schumacher and bounced high above the crease. Alex Toscano, the smart junior center on the second line, who Randolph sent on as a sixth attacker, swung at the puck when it was above the crossbar, but, fortunately, missed it. Then he swung again as the puck dropped back to legal height, and knocked it in, with 10 seconds remaining. A referee supervisor monitoring the video review, confirmed what I saw, but the official scorer gave the goal to Trevor Olson, who had scored East’s first goal in the game, and is the regular winger on the Toninato-Randolph line. I asked officials to check the goal again to be sure, and when they went to, the video had been erased to be reused for the next game. Maybe I’m wrong, but if Toscano got the goal, congratulations. And I tried.
As for kharma, the more likely scenario was that Lakeville South coach Kurt Weber’s game plan was executed to perfection to spring the upset. “East is the best high school team I’ve ever seen, systematically,” Weber said. “They do some things and you lose track of their weakside winger, then they go to him so well. I’m so impressed with how East plays that I called Mike and asked him for a scrimmage before the season. We took a school bus up to Duluth, and in the scrimmage, just like tonight, we stood around and watched them pass the puck around for the first 10 minutes, before we realized we had to start playing.
“When we realized we’d have to play East, we cut apart some videos and made our kids watch them, to see how well they used the rink-wide passes to the weakside winger, and if you let them get up to full speed, how tough it is to stop them. This is the smartest group I’ve ever coached, and we showed them what we’d have to do to stop them. That’s what it takes to beat the No. 1 team in the state.”
I was digesting the coincidence that the opposing coach crafted the huge upset because he was so impressed with Mike Randolph’s system for this East team, even if some of East’s own parents thought differently about their coach. About then, Bill Lechner’s motto came back, because East usually scores goals that are stunning, and might be called “cute,” and there was nothing cute about the way Lakeville South prevented all but two of them.
My underlying theme of positive kharma returned when Benilde-St. Margaret’s rose up to surprise Edina in the final game, breaking a 2-2 tie that seemed destined for overtime when Chrsistian Horn scored with 23.9 seconds remained in the third period. Benilde, with complete unity behind coach Ken Pauly, had the added emotional kharma of Jack Jablonski, watching from a wheelchair in a suite after suffering a paralyzing injury in a junior varsity game Dec. 30.
Now we jump ahead 12 hours, to Hermantown’s 3-2 victory over Thief River Falls in the Class A semifinals — a game in which superb Hawks defenseman Jared Kolquist scored the tying goal six minutes into the third period, with 5:15 remaining, and then Jared Thomas scored his second goal of the game with 5:15 remaining. Incidentally, why aren’t Division I colleges all over Kolquist, who is the emotional leader of the Hawks and a true warrior. Coach Bruce Plante said he talked to Thief River Falls coach Tim Bergland before that game and, knowing that St. Thomas Academy and Breck were playing in the other semifinal, told him, “We’re playing for the public school championship.”
The thought hit me that my perception of Hermantown’s program was that there seems to be complete unity, that not only were all the players on the same page, but all the parents seemed totally supportive.
“We’ve got great parents,” said Plante. “The parents have left me alone — no emails, no phone calls. I’ve told them that if they want to get rid of me, just start bitching. Same with the players. I told them if they want me to quit, just tell me. I’ve retired from teaching, and I like to bow-hunt and ice fish.”
A day later, Moorhead jumped ahead of Hill-Murray in the AA semifinals, outshooting the Pioneers 7-1 at the start before junior Hill-Murray defenseman Blake Heinrich jolted Aaron Herdt with the most jolting bodycheck of the tournament. The Hill-Murray fans taunted the Spuds at that point with chants of “Mashed potato…mashed potato.” That hit created an interesting changeover. As Moorhead tried to show they could hit, too, the Spuds seemed to stop making plays with the puck, and the Pioneers were inspired by the big check to start playing. The Pioneers outshot Moorhead 10-5 in the second period, and an amazing 12-1 in the third, when Conrad Sampair scored the tying goal, and came back to score the 2-1 game-winner on a dazzling rush at 1:51 of overtime.
No, there was nothing cute about it, but Hill-Murray won much more than the moment. In the second AA semifinal, Benilde shocked Lakeville South 10-1, jumping to a 5-0 lead in the first period, when it became obvious that either the Cougars had completely spent all their energy and inspiration on upsetting East, or coach Weber couldn’t find any videotapes of Benilde-St. Margaret’s.
The championship games in both classes were, at best, anticlimactic. St.Thomas Academy, a military academy in Mendota Heights that qualifies as Class A with “only” 1,066 students, has only boys in the school, which means that an equal number of girls would boost the school far into Class AA. The Cadets, who beat Breck 1-0 in the semifinals, ran away and hid from Hermantown in a 5-1 championship game that was 5-0 before the Hawks got their goal, from Jared Kolquist on a two-man power play.
Meanwhile, the best thing about the AA final was that Benilde-St. Margaret’s and Hill-Murray were two small private schools (Hill-Murray has 706 enrollment, Benilde 930) who are playing up in AA, where they belong. Benilde, in fact, won two Class A championships before coach Ken Pauly decided that was enough evidence to prove the Red Knights should move up to play with the big schools. In an amazing romp, junior Grant Besse scored all five goals for a 5-1 victory over Hill-Murray. Besse may have set a record of some sort because his last three goals were all shorthanded.
Duluth East, by the way, came back to beat Edina 3-2 in consolation play, scoring all three goals in the final period, then the Hounds finished their season 29-2 by beating Eagan 4-1 in the consolation final. There were some cute goals involved in those two victories, and, in retrospect, Hill-Murray might have liked to have had a couple of those cute goals against Benilde.
FINAL FIVE, FROZEN FOUR WEEK
The NCAA men’s Frozen Four is always an entertaining tournament, but the WCHA Final Five is often more spectacular to watch, and this year should be no exception. UMD, the defending NCAA champs, joins Minnesota in the two bye slots, while North Dakota, Denver, St. Cloud State and Michigan Tech scrap to earn the right to face them.
Tech, which took out Colorado College in two games at Colorado Springs last weekend, comes to Xcel Center to face Denver Thursday night, after Denver needed a third game to overcome strong-finishing Wisconsin, while St. Cloud State, having eliminated Nebraska-Omaha, faces North Dakota. The Denver-Michigan Tech winner and the North Dakota-St. Cloud winner will advance to the semifinals, where UMD will be waiting in the 2 p.m. game Friday, and Minnesota is installed in the 7 p.m. second semifinal.
Interesting, but Minnesota, which won the WCHA title, is 26-12-1 and rated only No. 8 in the Pairwise computer rankings, while UMD, the league runner-up, is No. 3 at 24-8-6. Furthermore, UMD is ranked No. 2 in the country to Boston College in the standard collegiate ratings. Both UMD and Minnesota are assured of berths in the NCAA tournament next week, while North Dakota and Denver could also make it. In the NCAA scheme, Minnesota must play at Xcel Center, where it is the host team, but maybe as a No. 2 seed, while UMD will probably get sent to a different regional as a No. 1 seed.
The league tournaments will matter greatly, however, because the CCHA has risen to prominence in the Pairwise, where, after No. 1 Boston College, Michigan is No. 2, followed by UMD, and then CCHA stalwarts Ferris State and Miami of Ohio as Nos. 4-5, with Boston University 6. League playoff champions get automatic berths in the 16-team NCAA field, and if the current Pairwise were to establish No. 1 seeds right now, they would be BC, Michigan, UMD and then either Ferris State or Miami, depending on which does better in the CCHA playoffs.
Meanwhile, the Women’s NCAA Frozen Four is at AMSOIL Arena this weekend, with an intriguing field in spite of the absence of UMD. Those who watched the WCHA Final Faceoff might realize that Wisconsin and Minnesota are two of the nation’s elite teams, and Boston College and Cornell come in from the East. In Friday semifinals, Minnesota (32-5-2) faces Cornell (30-4), while Wisconsin (32-4-2) plays BC (24-9-3). The championship is at 3 p.m. Sunday.
The NCAA regionals saw Wisconsin beat Mercyhurst 3-1, while the Gophers beat North Dakota 5-1, Boston College took out St. Lawrence 6-3, and Cornell outlasted BU 8-7 in three overtimes. All four are worthy of the title, and if Wisconsin and Minnesota happen to reach the final, we’re guaranteed of a spectacular championship game.
Toyota deserves an ‘A’ for new Prius c
Prius c instruments show fuel economy and grade the driver for optimum fuel-efficient driving.
By John Gilbert
For a couple of decades now, the entire Toyota auto empire has been identified by the Camry. But maybe it’s time to realize that the Prius might be taking over as Toyota’s new signature vehicle.
Actually, it’s not just the Prius anymore. It’s the whole Prius family, which has a new baby — the Prius c. The “c” is lower-case, incidentally, and allegedly stands for “city,” and it is projected to become the top-selling model in the Prius group, because it’s smaller, lighter, less expensive, and gets the best mileage of any Prius.
Those last two items are what Toyota figures will drop the company’s aging demographic and become the hybrid for the younger masses, because you can get into one and be environmentally sound for $20,000.
Toyota tends to go beyond single models, going instead for clusters of cars, such as Lexus, or Scion. The same has happened to the Prius, which started out over a decade ago as a single vehicle, and became the hybrid compact that outsells all other electric and/or hybrid vehicles combined. Only Honda, with its Civic Hybrid, has built a strong competitor in sales of a high-mileage, good-looking compact with a small gas engine complemented by a battery pack’s electric motor. With its gas engine hooked up to recharge the electric motor’s power, fuel economy numbers have commonly reached 40 miles per gallon and beyond.
Prius c starts at $20,000 and can easily attain 50-plus miles per gallon.
The Prius came out in 2000 as a 2001 model, and the second generation moved the car from being an ugly duckling to a stylishly popular version with a contemporary angular look. The third generation refined the operation and carries on the look that carries on today. Toyota has sold 2.5 million Priuses globally, and 1.1 million of those have been in the U.S. That puts Prius at about a 4-1 advantage over Honda’s hybrids, 5-1 over Ford’s, and 10-1 over any hybrid sales generated by General Motors. Worries about the lifespan of the Toyota Hybrid Synergy Drive system have been nullified by the fact that 96 percent of all Priuses sold are still in operation.
Last year, Toyota expanded the Prius line by adding the Prius V, which is an elongated, wagon-style hatch companion to the standard Prius, which is now called the Hatchback. The Prius V adds 58 percent more cargo room, and Toyota sold 8,399 of them in their first 10 weeks on the market.
Obviously anticipating the arrival of the Chevrolet Volt and Nissan Leaf electric plug-in cars as competition, Toyota also added a plug-in version of the standard Prius Hatchback, which can be driven like a normal Prius, adding the advantage of plugging it in overnight. When fully charged, you can drive 15 miles at speeds up to 62 mph, and it will register 95 miles per gallon, or 50 in combined driving with both the plug-in charge and normal hybrid operation.
The Volt, incidentally, will run on electric only for about 35 miles, then its gas engine takes over, so if you live 10 miles from work you can get there and back day after day without ever needing to buy any more gasoline. However, the gas engine will not charge the battery pack, so it must be charged by overnight plug-in. The greater negative, along with a potential spike in your electric bill, is that the Prius price is in the $40,000 range, or about twice the price of a Prius c. Word came about the first of March that Chevrolet is halting production of the Volt for a few weeks because of more supply than demand.
Sculpted lines all aim at optimum aerodynamics on the new Prius c.
There are four levels of Prius c vehicles, beginning with a base car at $18,950, a second level with more features at $19,900, then a step up to $21,635, and a fully loaded model at $23,230.
One of the key elements of the c is that it comes equipped with some impressive features. Traction control, stability control, brake assist, electronic brake force distribution, and a hill-start assist control to prevent rolling backwards, are among the features available. The modern trend is that if we’re moving toward smaller and more fuel-efficient cars, that doesn’t mean we want primitive and starkly basic cars. Read more
Besse, Benilde win AA; Hawks fall in A final
By John Gilbert
SAINT PAUL, MN. — In a state hockey tournament where nothing went according to form, the final surprise came in the two championship finals. Benilde-St. Margaret’s whipped Hill-Murray 5-1 in a Class AA title game neither was expected to reach. The victory wasn’t as surprising as the fact the Red Knights turned loose Grant Besse, their junior sniper, and he frolicked up and down the Xcel Center rink — scoring all five Benilde goals, three of them shorthanded, to astound a crowd of 17,607.
Earlier, before 9,157 fans, Hermantown, the No. 1 ranked Class A team and the state’s only undefeated team in either class, had their season ended rudely when St. Thomas Academy not only beat the Hawks but ran away with the game — scoring the first five goals and cruising to a 5-1 victory in the A final.
The Hawks were the lone public school in either championship game, and the decisiveness of both title games merely concluded a four-day run of surprises.
Grant Besse scored his first of two shorthanded breakaway goals against Hill-Murray goaltender John Dugas.
Besse, a lean but quick skater with a knack for getting loose, and for shooting with laser precision, scored twice in a 1:33 span of the first period, finished his hat trick with a shorthanded goal in the second, and then, after Hill-Murray scored its only goal in the third period, Besse scored shorthanded at 8:00. He climaxed his unforgettable night by rushing from end to end up the right side while shorthanded again, this time firing a deadly shot from the right circle into the upper left corner of the net at 14:03.
That gave Besse eight goals for the tournament, an amazing 8-3–11 that brought back memories of the days of John Mayasich — or at least Dave Spehar.
Benilde-St. Margaret’s was a sentimental pick for several reasons. The school won the Class A championship in 1999 and 2001, and was then urged by coach Ken Pauly to move up to AA — something most hockey fans urge all other private schools to do. Saturday night’s championship proved the merit of that move, with the Red Knights‘ first championship in their second Class AA tournament appearance.
The Red Knights also played with the extra inspiration from Jack Jablonski, their junior varsity player who was paralyzed in a check into the boards at midseason, and who was at Xcel Center for the games. Benilde served notice of its caliber by stunning No. 2 ranked Minnetonka 5-1 in the Section 6AA final, then beat Edina, Lakeville South, and Hill-Murray to claim the title.
The tournament was a duplicate of near-miss luck for both Hermantown and Duluth East, the top-rated teams in the two classes. East, which was upset by Lakeville South Thursday, came back to beat Edina 3-2 in consolation play Friday, and beat Eagan 4-1 Saturday for the consolation trophy, as Jake Randolph scored twice, and Dom Toninato and Steven Holappa once each. For the tournament, Toninato had 3-4–7, and Randolph 3-3–6 in the last games together for the pair, who have been linemates since Mites hockey — age 6.
East’s loss, and Marshall losing its first two games, left Hermantown as the Duluth area’s lone hope, and after finishing second in the last two finals, the Hawks made a run at the title. Winning their first two games, against Rochester Lourdes and Thief River Falls, gave the Hawks a chance to avenge their 5-4 overtime loss of a year ago against St. Thomas Academy. Instead, the Cadets (26-5) never gave the Hawks a chance to get untracked.
Hermantown was surrounded by celebrating Cadets most of the day in the Class A final.
Alex Johnson had two goals and two assists, igniting a lead of 2-0 in the first period, and it became 5-0 before the Hawks finally broke through for Jared Kolquist’s goal on a two-man power play later in the second period.
“St. Thomas Academy was great today, and there’s not a whole lot we could do different to change that,” said Hermantown coach Bruce Plante. “We tried our best. We were battling hard, but they took so much away from us. We were hoping to get a goal because a goal gets everyone percolating, but it just didn’t happen.
“We had some trouble with matchups. We’ve got a nice team, with a good first line, but they have three first lines and we have one.”
Matt Mensinger blocked the puck, and Hawks defensemen Jared Kolquist (16) and Brian LeBlanc helped out.
St. Thomas Academy co-coach Greg Vannelli said getting the first goal was a big plus. “Last year, we went down 3-0 against Hermantown,” he said. “There’s so much pressure and anxiety in the championship game that scoring the first goal loosens up the whole team, and it gave us good flow.”
How about scoring the first five goals? Matt Perry scored the game’s first goal at 2:53 when he went to the net and Austin Sattler’s rebound went in off his skate blade. Alex Johnson then blasted one in at 5:42 and it was 2-0.
Matt Mensinger dived to beat St. Thomas Academy freshman Tom Novak to the puck.
The Hawks had a lot of time to get back into the game in the second period, but Johnson scored on a quick shot on a Cadet power play to make it 3-0 at 7:26, and the stream became a river when Pete Krieger grabbed a blocked shot and converted just 11 seconds later to make it 4-0. At 10:08 of the middle period, Alex Johnson sent a soft pass from the left side across the slot for Austin Sattler to deflect past goaltender Matt Mensinger, and it was 5-0.
The Hawks couldn’t penetrate the St. Thomas Academy defense until the Cadets took two penalties six seconds apart. On the two-man power play, Jared Thomas passed from the right circle across to the left circle, and defenseman Jared Kolquist ripped a shot at 11:34 that broke Zevnik’s bid for a shutout.
The Cadets breezed through a tight third period, where shots were only 2-2, preventing the Hawks from any thought of a rally, and they go home with what is still the state’s best record at 30-1.
Hawks go public, reaching Class A final
By John Gilbert
SAINT PAUL, MN. — “We’re the public school champ,” declared Hermantown coach Bruce Plante, after his Hawks defeated Thief River Falls 3-2 Friday in the Class A state hockey tournament semifinals. “I told the Thief guys that before the game — that we were playing for the public school title.”
That means the Hawks are half done, because they now face a Saturday championship game against St. Thomas Academy that is a rematch of last year’s final, won 5-4 in overtime by St. Thomas Academy. Defending state champ St. Thomas Academy reached the final by beating Breck 1-0 in the “private school” championship half of the bracket.
Conrad Sampair scored both Hill-Murray goals to beat Moorhead 2-1 in OT.
Meanwhile, it’s an all-private-school Class AA final Saturday night. Hill-Murray defeated Moorhead 2-1 in overtime, when Conrad Sampair tied the game 1-1 by solving previously invincible Spuds goaltender Michael Blitzer for a goal at 9:58 of the third period, in which the Pioneers outshot Moorhead 12-1. Sampair then sped around the defense and won it with a goal at 1:51 of sudden-death. The Pioneers (24-6) are peaking at exactly the right time, but their foe in the Saturday night AA final will be a Benilde-St. Margaret’s team that turned from upset specialist to dynamo Friday night, crushing Lakeville South 10-1.
Dan Labosky (27) completed his hat trick as Benilde crushed Lakeville South 10-1.
Dan Labosky had a hat trick and Grant Besse and Zack Hale two each for Benilde (24-6), as the Red Knights led 5-0 after one and 7-0 after two. Lakeville South was outshot 38-21 and showed none of the masterful and focused technique that upset No. 1 Duluth East 3-2 in the first round.
As for East, the Greyhounds joined the three other AA top seeds at Mariucci Arena and bounced back in the third period to beat Edina 3-2. Trailing 1-0, Dom Toninato scored at 2:37 of the third to tie the game, but Edina quickly regained the lead, only to have the Hounds tie it again on Jake Randolph’s power-play goal. Toninato scored again, at 14:36, during a scramble at the Edina goal, and East advances to Saturday’s consolation final with a 29-2 record, to face an Eagan team that whipped Maple Grove 4-1 Friday.
Hermantown goalie Matt Mensinger's final save with 0:00 left ended the 3-2 semifina victory over Thief River Falls.
Friday’s Class A semifinals were more dramatic than the AA games. Hermantown’s victory in the second Class A semifinal went right to the final buzzer, and then some, as Hawks goaltender Matt Mensinger blocked one shot with two seconds left, and sprawled on his back to stop another Thief River Falls try as the clock hit 0:00. That put him in an oddly vulnerable position as his teammates, swarming to celebrate their 3-2 victory, piled on top of the goalie before he had a chance to get to his feet. “That’s the first one of those I’ve ever been in like that,” said Mensinger. “It hurt being on the bottom. I couldn’t even see.”
But he saw things well enough to give the No. 1 ranked Hawks two things they’ve waited for: the chance to face No.2 St. Thomas Academy in Saturday’s High Noon showdown for the Class A title, and the chance for coach Plante to try to convince everybody the Hawks are the underdog.
The Hawks buried Mensinger celebrating the victory.
When a 1-0 lead suddenly turned into a 2-1 deficit in the third period, the Hawks responded the way they have all season. Jared Kolquist’s goal tied it 2-2, and Jared Thomas’s second goal of the game, with 5:15 remaining, reclaimed the lead for the Hawks at 3-2.
“We wanted to make sure we won two to get another shot at ’em,” said Thomas, who scored the first and last goals of the game to get the Hawks started and to win the game. Thomas, wide to the left of the net, rapped in the rebound of a Jared Kolquist shot at 6:34 of the first period, and it appeared Hermantown would be content to win 1-0 as the game headed into the third period.
Thief River Falls tied the Hawks 1-1 on Austin Odberg's goal.
It took two goals by the Prowlers to slap the Hawks upside the head. Austin Odberg broke up the right side for a pass from Riley Soderstrom, and when goalie Matt Mensinger went down anticipating a shot, Odberg fired into the roof of the net at 4:08. At 5:16, Logan Engelstad shot one off the goal pipe, pounced on the rebounding puck wide to the left, and lifted it over the sprawling goaltender.
“After the second period, we were down 1-0 and I told our team we could sneak up on them,” said Bergland. “And we did. Our gas tank was full in that third period.”
But the Hawks never lost their poise; they just turned up the attack. Kolquist, a versatile defenseman, saw Matt Lord take a rebound behind the net, attempting a wraparound. When it didn’t beat goaltender Jon Narverud, Lord regained possession and chipped the puck out into the slot. There was Kolquist, angling in from the point, and he drilled his shot into the left edge of the net from 25 feet at 6:16 for a 2-2 tie.
The Hawks had to kill a penalty until the 10-minute mark, then Thomas scored what Plante refers to as a goal-scorer’s goal. “you know how goal-scorers are,” said the coach. “They throw anything toward the net and it goes in. Other guys can’t throw it into an ocean.”
Thomas actually wasn’t trying to score. He was on the right boards when Andrew Mattson sent a hard pass through the crease and over to Thomas. “I knew Chris Benson was in the slot and I heard him yell,” said Thomas. “I tried to pass it to him.” But Prowler defenseman Riley Olson moved out to prevent Benson from deflecting Thomas’s pass, and as luck would have it — goal-scorer’s luck — the pass glanced off Olson’s skate and into the net at 11:45.
Then it was up to Hermantown’s team defense to hold the 3-2 lead, a task the Hawks have done regularly. The victory made the Hawks 30-0, and their No. 1 rank was secure for another night, but it didn’t stop Plante from a little showmanship, knowing his team was up against a Twin Cities private school powerhouse. St. Thomas Academy and Breck have won the last four state Class A titles, and Hermantown was the title-game victim of the last two.
“Yeah, isn’t that something?” Plante said. “We’re 30-0, we just set a school record with our 30th win, and we’re the underdogs, no matter what the ratings say. It’s hard for us to compete with these teams down here. We’ve got 600 kids in our school, and if we could draw from all of Northern Minnesota we’d have, what — 100,000 people? They can draw from about eight billion people down here.
“All of our kids played in our youth program. A couple families have moved into our area, but we’ve taught most of ’em how to play in our youth program. We had 40 kids out for the team, and we kept 35. Our goalie coach builds us a goalie every year. It takes a couple years, so they only get to play as seniors. They’ve never been out of Hermantown until we bring ’em down here.”
Mensinger, a tall, lanky 6-foot-3 goaltender, laughed at that but agreed in principle. “I got to come down here last year, and I got to play for 4 minutes and 7 seconds.”
His play, and the team defense surrounding him, are the true keys to the Hawks success.
“Boy, they play well defensively,” said Thief River Falls coach Tim Bergland, a former Prowler, Gopher, and NHLer. “We did too. Both teams limited the quality scoring chances. They were on top of us in the first period, and we had to stretch things out and try to force their defensemen back.”
The Cadets (25-5) got a second period goal from Peter Krieger, who was at the crease to convert a pass out from Tony Bretzman at 14:06 of the middle period, and goalie David Zevnik made it stand up by stopping all 25 Breck shots. If that game represented the Class A Private School Championship, both St. Thomas Academy and Breck could take a lesson from Hill-Murray and Benilde, a pair of small-enrollment private schools that play hockey where they belong, in Class AA.
East stunned 3-2 amid AA upsets
By John Gilbert
ST. PAUL, MN. — There have been occasional cougar-sightings on the outskirts of Duluth in recent years, although there have been no reports of any attacks on humans. That changed Thursday night, when the Lakeville South Cougars prowled Xcel Energy Center’s ice rink and mauled Duluth East’s carefully crafted season with a stunning 3-2 victory in the first round of the state high school hockey tournament.
Lakeville South's Patrick Lauderdale circled behind the East net after his second-period goal tied Duluth East 1-1.
It wasn’t the only upset of the first day in Class AA, with No. 2 Maple Grove getting thumped 5-2 by Hill-Murray, then No. 3 Eagan falling 4-0 to Moorhead. Maple Grove scored first, but Hill-Murray then scored the next five goals and won 5-2. In the second quarterfinal, Eagan had all the shots but none of the goals, as Moorhead scored three times in the third period to win a surprising 4-0 game despite being outshot 34-19. Goaltender Michael Blitzer put on a show, blocking all 34 shots for the shutout.
Edina, seeded fourth, had yet to face Benilde-St. Margaret’s in the day’s finale, to see who would become the fourth part of the Friday night semifinals. But already, Friday’s consolation semifinals at Mariucci Arena took on a special glow — with Eagan playing Maple Grove, and East trying to bounce back. “It doesn’t matter whether Edina or Benilde win,” said Randolph. “We’re going to have to play one of them.”
It will be Edina. Sure enough, Christian Horn rushed into the Edina zone 1-on-2 in the final minute, cut to his right, and drilled a 30-footer into the short-side upper corner with 23.9 seconds remaining to give Benilde-St. Margaret’s a 3-2 victory over No. 4 seeded Edina to complete the day with the four seeded teams 0-4. Edina outshot the Red Knights 38-26, but a 1-1 game broke loose in the third period, with Benilde’s Dan Labosky scoring at 0:17, and Edina’s Andy Jordahl countering at 0:36 to re-tie it 2-2. Edina outshot Benilde 19-6 in the third period, but the sixth Red Knight shot was the charm.
The results thrust Hill-Murray (23-6) against Moorhead (22-6) in the first semifinal, while Lakeville South (21-8) takes on Benilde (24-5) in the late game.
If East’s loss wasn’t the only upset, it was the biggest one — of the day, and of the whole season. Yet the way the Cougars executed, with confidence increasing every shift, they didn’t play like it was an upset. It certainly was no fluke. Lakeville South spotted East the first goal, then took over the game, defusing the Greyhounds in all three zones and generating most of the clean offensive chances. John Wiitala’s goal broke a 1-1 tie early in the third period, and Justin Kloos scored an empty-net goal to make It 3-1with 40 seconds remaining. East’s Alex Toscano batted a high-bouncing rebound out of the air for a desperation East goal, but only 10 seconds remained.
“We’ve played some really good teams this season, but we’ve never had a team do what they did to us tonight, for three periods,” said East coach Mike Randolph, whose team has been ranked No. 1 since January, and still has the best record at 27-2. “We never got going, and it was an uncharacteristic game for us. Give them credit. They flew out of their zone.”
Lakeville South coach Kurt Weber said his team has been comfortably flying under the radar all season, compared to East’s hard-earned No. 1 status. He added that East is “the best high school team I’ve seen, systematically. They like to move the puck up one side so you lose track of the weakside guy, then they pass to him. They also like to use the neutral zone, and if they’re at full speed, they’re tough. This is the smartest group I’ve had, so we cut apart the video to show our players what they had to look out for. That’s what it takes to beat the No. 1 team.”
The Greyhounds jumped ahead on an early goal that was vintage Greyhounds, and at 3:37, made it look like all was well. Dominic Toninato passed off the end boards to Jake Randolph, who shot quickly, and Trevor Olson put away the rebound from wide to the right. Despite numerous other chances, the Hounds were unable to get anything more past Tyler Schumacher in the Lakeville nets, leaving the Cougars room to battle back in the second period.
Midway through the second session, Lakeville South tied it on a well-executed line rush. Alex Harvey carried in on the left side, passed to the slot to scoring ace Justin Kloos, who quickly relayed a pass to the right circle, where Pat Lauderdale fired a shot past Dylan Parker.
East goalie Dylan Parker survived Patrick Lauderdale's shot off the pipe.
The goal gave the Cougars more inspiration and they not only battled the Greyhounds evenly throughout the rest of the second period, they had the better scoring chances. Grant Gangeness shot off a rush from the left circle and the puck struck the far post squarely. The ricochet hit the knob of Parker’s goal stick, and it took a diving Conner Valesano to handball the bouncing puck out of the crease to safety.
By the third period, the Greyhounds appeared a little frantic to escape from their zone. A careless outlet flip up the right boards was picked off by Justin Doeden, who fed immediately to John Wiitala, behindy the last East skater. Wiitala broke in alone and made a deft move on Parker before shooting into the left edge at 1:34.
That meant there was a lot of time left, but the Cougars continued to shut down the Hounds, clear their zone, and attack. One shot went off the crossbar behind Parker. Then Wiitala shifted past a defenseman and cruised in alone, only to have Parker make a huge save. Parker made another great save to rob Lauderdale. By then, the time had drained away, and it was time for Parker to go to the bench for a sixth attacker.
Meirs Moore, trying to ignite the offense from his defensive post, wound up making two saves in front of the open East net, but with 40 seconds left, Kloos picked off another soft breakout attempt and shot for the open net. It might have gone in, or it might have been wide right, but Moore, diving to try to block it, deflected it just a bit and it wound up in the net.
Dom Toninato (19) won the faceoff, Jake Randolph (16) shot, and Alex Toscano (23) batted the rebound in out of the air with 10 seconds remaining.
Toninato won a left-corner faceoff and Randolph shot, with the puck bouncing high off goaltender Tyler Schumacher. Alex Toscano, the sixth attacker, was at the right edge of the crease and swatted at it too high, but missed, so he swung again and knocked it in at 16:50.
Afterward, Toninato said: “It’s one of the worst feelings knowing the team we have. We just didn’t get the job done. Hats off to Lakeville South. They bottled us up, and we couldn’t get going.”
On Lakeville’s side, top scorer Kloos summed it up. “When you play on the pond growing up, you dream about playing in the state tournament and scoring a goal. I’m playing with my best friends, and that’s the reason I’m playing high school hockey.”
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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