C-Max style, room, economy defy convention
Rarely has a new vehicle been introduced with more confusion and criticism than celebration.
Built for economy and versatlity, C-Max also finds winter no challenge at all.
Hmmm…confusion, criticism, and celebration. Maybe that’s how they came up with the name “C-Max.” Every automaker likes to boast about uniqueness, and how their new product defies categorization, but Ford seems to have mastered the trick with the new C-Max.
It seems to be neither fish nor fowl, car or truck, small minivan or spacious mini car. It comes as a hybrid, or a plug-in hybrid, known as Energi. And it has remarkable interior space for being so compact and small on the outside.
Amid a flurry of quirky or trendy names that feature letters, numbers, or retrospective monickers, Ford has confused U.S. consumers and critics with the new C-Max. When it was first announced, many thought it was a large semi-trailer-hauling truck, and even though it has been available in Europe with conventional engines, when the car magazines and North American Car and Truck of the Year executives made their choices on categorizing, it wound up listed among trucks, and even minivans.
In reality, the C-Max is a cleverly designed and executed small capsule of a car, shaped indeed like a minivan or tiny crossover SUV. It finished third among North American Truck/Utility of the Year candidates, behind the Ram 1500 and the Mazda CX-5, and Motor Trend listed it in its truck preview issue right there with the Tahoes and Rams and Ford cousins like the F150 and Explorers. Ford itself continually draws comparisons to various Toyota Prius models.
Introduced right before the end of the 2012 calendar year, the C-Max appeared to be a blunt instrument in the vast array of small economy vehicles. Rounded off, its capsule shape bears a strong resemblance to the new Escape SUV, or the Focus or Fiesta compact and subcompact, aimed at aerodynamic smoothness.
Prices range from $25,000 to over $30,000 for the fully-equipped plug-in Energi model, but the C-Max performance is what will make it a large-volume seller. You quickly forget how small it is outside when you climb in and find the tall roof providing lots of headroom, adequate rear seat room and spacious cargo area inside the rear hatch, with, of course, expansion via fold-down rear seats. And you can forget it’s a hybrid by how swiftly it accelerates or willingly passes other cars when you drive it even a little aggressively. Read more
Edina’s Hornets buzz Hill-Murray for title
Edina’s players piled on top of goalie Willie Benjamin after beating Hill-Murray 4-2 for the Minnesota AA high school hockey championship.
By John Gilbert
SAINT PAUL, MN.
In a Minnesota high school hockey tournament where controversies and shortcomings seemed to be prominent, the best was saved for last, as Edina defeated Hill-Murray 4-2 with an impressive show at both ends of the Xcel Energy Center rink to win the Class AA championship. It was a record eighth state hockey title for the Hornets.
The Hornets (25-6) also won in 1969, 1971,1982, 1984, 1988, 1997 and 2010, and that dismisses the titles the Hornets won as Edina East in 1974, 1978 and 1979. The No. 1 seeded Hill-Murray Pioneers finished 27-3-1, and fell short for the second year in a row in the final, seeking their second title to match the one they earned in 2008.
The title game drew 17,739 fans to Xcel Energy Center, for a tournament total of 117,748 for the annual four-day classic.
The championship game had all the appropriate drama and tension, although after the Hornets spotted Hill-Murray the first of two goals by Josh French, then rattled off four consecutive goals, the question was whether the Pioneers could break through Willie Benjamin’s goaltending again. They did, but couldn’t get the third goal for proximity through a scoreless third period.
Neither team had a weakness and if there were questions whether Hill-Murray could keep up with Edina’s quickness, or whether Edina could survive Hill-Murray’s toughness, both were answered as soon as the puck dropped. Yes, and yes.
The teams waged a high-speed, high-spirited battle for supremacy, where nobody could take a shift off. The good plays were impressive, the goals were colorful, the defensive play was stifling, and even the foul-ups were exciting. When Edina built a 4-1 lead, the Pioneers had just about as many quality scoring chances, but a lot of them bounced over a stick or went just wide of the pipes.
The Pioneers got the first jump, when Josh French caught Zach LaValle’s pass out from behind and took a shot that found its way through Willie Benjamin in the Edina goal at 4:11. The Pioneers took a penalty and Dylan Malmquist tied it 1-1 at 6:31 with a burst of speed up the right side, turning the defense and cutting across in front, where he stuffed his shot at the left edge.
The Hornets gained a burst of adrenaline from the goal and kept the attack going, taking a 2-1 lead at 11:56 when Cullen Munson kicked a rebound ahead as he stepped to the left to elude Pioneer goalie John Dugas, and tucked it in.
In the second period, Munson was the beneficiary of a strong sequence by Bo Brauer, who shot off the right post, chased his glancing blow into the right corner, then darted behind the net before feeding the slot, where Munson quickly put it away at 2:11 for a 3-1 cushion.
As the Hornets proved they could match Hill-Murray’s checking game, the Pioneers turned up their velocity to trade rushes with Edina. But the Hornets kept their rally going, scoring their fourth consecutive goal at 14:31 of the middle period and Anthony Walsh blocked a D-to-D pass and broke free up the middle. Speeding in, Walsh beat Dugas cleanly on teh breakaway and it was 4-1.
It looked like it might turn into a runaway, but only for 45 seconds, and then LaValle moved in on the right side at the other end of the rink, and slid a pass to the slot where French again connected with a shot into the left edge on Benjamin, sending the game into the third period 4-2.
In the third period, however, the Hornets tightened down defensively, turning back repeated Hill-Murray rushes and surviving with Benjamin acrobatically scrambling around and diving to cover loose pucks. The minutes ticked off, and Hill-Murray coach Bill Lechner — whose team lost in last year’s final to Benilde-St. Margaret’s — pulled Dugas with over two minutes remaining.
Still, nothing would go in to make that third goal and set up a truly frantic finish. And the Hornets skated to their fans to celebrate their record eighth state hockey championship.
Hawks fall with 0:07 left; East, Marshall recover
By John Gilbert
SAINT PAUL, MN.
Coming close doesn’t ever get satisfying for coach Bruce Plante. Nor does being the “public school” hockey champion. But Saturday afternoon’s stinging 5-4 loss to St. Thomas Academy in the Class A Minnesota state tournament championship game might have been the hardest to swallow for the veteran coach.
He’s had practice, too. This was the fourth straight time Hermantown (25-5-1) reached the A title game, and the fourth straight time the Hawks have come away unfulfilled — and the third time St. Thomas Academy had been the team to beat the Hawks in the final. It gave the Cadets (27-2-2) their third straight Class A championship to send them on their way into Class AA next season.
Matt Perry, a senior who insists he’s a shut-down checking center assigned to opposing top-line centers, scored the first hat trick of his life with a goal in each period — including the first goal of the third period to ignite a three-goal rally that overturned a 4-2 Hermantown lead. Henry Hart followed with the tying goal, and Tommy Novak blasted a 30-foot power-play slapshot with seven seconds remaining, to give the Cadets their victory.
When the game ended, Plante stalked across the ice to confront referee J.B. Olson, who had called a marginal holding penalty on Scott Wasbotten with 1:57 remaining and the teams locked in an intensely exciting 4-4 battle. Technically, the play could have met the strictest requirement of holding, and there are those who say every technical violation should be called. However, the worst was yet to come.
"If you're going to call that one," Hermantown coach Bruce Plante told referee J.B. Olson...
..."then you've got to call that one, too."
The Hawks were scrambling to efficiently kill off the penalty and get to overtime, but on the game-ending power play, a St. Thomas Academy skater trying to prevent Hawk defenseman Jake Zeleznikar from clearing the puck, accosted Zeleznikar in a far more flagrant violation that was not called, allowing the Cadets to regain possession in the closing seconds, and leading directly to Novak’s winning goal.
“I went after a loose puck on the half-wall,” Zeleznikar said. “But their guy had me in a headlock, and when I tried to chip it out of the zone, I couldn’t move.”
In the post-game interview setting, Plante said: “We got a penalty on one play, then they wrapped our guy up and got the winning goal when they didn’t call it.” Asked about the “discussion” he had with the ref, Plante said, evenly: “It was one-way. It wasn’t a discussion; it was one-way. I thought it was a great game, and I loved our effort…I don’t know if we can play any better. But to have a call like that, and a non-call, at the end of a game makes this one of the most disappointing losses I’ve ever had.”
That includes last year, when Plante acknowledges his team didn’t play very well in a 5-1 loss to St. Thomas Academy. The year before more closely duplicated this one, when a couple of controversial calls contributed to Hermantown losing a lead late in the game, and St. Thomas Academy won 5-4 in overtime.
Chris Benson scored on his own rebound to ignite a 3-goal Hermantown rally.
“Last year, we didn’t play our best,” Plante recalled. “But this time we played smart, physical — everything you have to do to win the game. Of course St. Thomas Academy brings out the best in us. So does St. Cloud Cathedral, Marshall, and Breck. These guys know you have to play your best to beat them.”
It was unfortunate that a tournament with such emotionally inspiring play would be dotted by some strange officiating, but worse, that a state championship would be influenced so heavily by such a close-order exchange of curious calls. Particularly because it was such an impressive game, with both teams exchanging offensive haymakers.
St. Thomas Academy came into the game on a streak that showed why the time has come to move the Inver Grove Heights private school up to AA. The Cadets had run up an eight-game winning streak coming into the title game, and while outscoring those eight opponents 76-2, the Cadets shut out Henry Sibley, Chisago Lakes and Totino Grace in Section 4, then blanked St. Cloud Apollo (12-0) and East Grand Forks (11-0) in the state tournament.
But Saturday, the Cadets faced the first team since January that could challenge them. They ran their consecutive goal-scoring streak to 24 in the state tournament and 43 straight goals since playoffs began when Perry scored at 15:12 of the first period. But at 15:54, just six seconds before the first period ended, Hermantown snapped those streaks when Chris Benson tried a wraparound that goalie David Zevnik blocked, but Benson scored on his own rebound foir a 1-1 tie.
Hawks celebrated Scott Wasbotten's goal for a 2-1 lead in the Class A final against St. Thomas Academy.
Aroused, the Hawks rushed out in the second period and took the action to the Cadets, jumping to a 3-1 lead with a pair of goals 18 seconds apart. Scott Wasbotten scored on a rebound at 9:38, and Neal Pionk rushed in from the left point and passed across the crease where Ryan Kero had and easy goal at 10:46. Perry’s secod goal of the game came on a power play at 15:07 to cut it to 3-2, but 37 seconds later Lane LeGarde scored with a shot that popped up off Zevnik and trickled across the line just as Hermantown’s Grant Sega crashed into the goaltender.
With a 4-2 lead, the Hawks looked pretty secure, but the highly skilled Cadets were far from done. Gunnar Regan fired a shot that Adam Smith stopped, but the rebound went right to Perry, and he put it away at 2:53 to make it 4-3. “We all knew we could come back,” Perry said. “And after we got that first goal in the third period, I felt we could do it.”
The Cadets tied it 4-4 at 9:05 when Henry Hart got a blocked puck in the slot, whirled and fired a shot off the right pipe and in. That sent the game on toward what looked like overtime, but then came the intrusion of the questionable penalties, leading to the Cadets fantastic finish and obscuring what a great game it was.
“I’m just proud of our guys,” said St. Thomas Academy co-coach Greg Vannelli. “We’ve had a target on our backs all year.” Asked how Hermantown was able to score and challenge a Cadets team that many thought was invincible, Vannelli said: “They’re just a good team. They probably did what they’ve done all year.”
St. Thomas goaltender David Zevnik survived Nate Pionk's rush to the goal.
The Hawks had a much tougher bracket than St. Thomas Academy, as the tournament made it appear that the Cadets, the Hawks, and Breck were clearly the best three teams of the field of eight. Hermantown had to beat Marshall 3-0 in a neighborhood quarterfinal battle, then get past Breck 4-3 in two overtimes, while St. Thomas Academy was breezing to its 12-0 and 11-0 romps.
Marshall came back from that opening loss to beat Marshall, Minnesota, 4-1, and Saturday morning the Hilltoppers jumped to a 4-2 first-period lead and beat Rochester Lourdes 6-5. Connor Flaherty and Matthew Klassen scored twice each for Marshall, while Lourdes made it close with two goals in the last 1:12. Marshall gained a large measure of satisfaction from beating Lourdes, which had inflicted a 7-0 beating on the ‘Toppers in mid-January.
Disappointing as Hermantown’s fourth straight championship game loss was, the three Duluth schools at the state tournament went a combined 6-2, with the Hawks winning the runner-up trophy, Marshall winning the consolation trophy, and the East Greyhounds bringing home the third-place trophy in Class AA.
The Greyhounds, beaten 3-2 by Edina in the semifinals of AA to snap a 17-game winning streak, bounced back to beat Wayzata 7-3 in the AA third-place game. The ‘Hounds jumped to a 4-0 lead and cruised to victory behind a pair of goals by both Philip Beaulieu and Alex Toscano, while Jack Forbort, Alex Trapp and Nick Altmann also scored.
That victory gave East a final record of 25-5, while Wayzata finished 22-8, and it also provided extra satisfaction for the Greyhounds, who lost 1-0 to Wayzata in the third game of the season.
East falls 3-2; Hawks win in 2nd OT to gain final
By John Gilbert
SAINT PAUL, MINN.
Duluth East suffered from an overdose of the good-ol’ days Friday night at Xcel Energy Center, as Edina looked like the speedy Hornets of decades past while toppling the Greyhounds 3-2 in the Class AA semifinals of the Minnesota high school hockey tournament. By contrast, Hermantown found just enough reason to appreciate deja vu as they reached Saturday night’s Class A championship game to face St. Thomas Academy for the third straight time.
In the Class AA final, Edina (23-6) will find Hill-Murray (27-2-1), which rallied for two goals in the third period to beat Wayzata 2-1 in the second semifinal of a session that drew 19,351.
Earlier in the day, the Class A teams owned the Xcel Energy Center ice, and Hermantown (25-4-1) survived a long, high-speed classic to subdue Breck 4-3 in the second overtime — almost at coach Bruce Plante’s bidding. Zach Kramer got the winning goal, at 7:26 of the second sudden-death period to give the Hawks the third straight — and final — chance to beat the two-time defending champion Cadets (26-2-2) for the title. St. Thomas Academy beat the Hawks in the title game the last two years, after Hermantown lost to Breck three years ago, making this the Hawks fourth straight final.
This time, St. Thomas Academy is No. 1 seed, and reached the final by crushing East Grand Forks 11-0 in the semis, after blitzing St. Cloud Apollo 12-0 in Wednesday’s opener. St. Thomas Academy is moving up from Class A to Class AA next season, so this is Hermantown’s last chance for revenge.
Plante, colorful as usual, was asked about the huge play sophomore Nate Pionk made to set up Kramer’s winning goal. “It was the only thing those guys did all game,” Plante said. “I just got through chewing them out, big time, on the bench. I told them they had done nothing, and they were playing chicken hockey, afraid to carry the puck. I really jumped on them. So they go out and get the winning goal.”
Edina's Miguel Fidler hit the net behind East goalie Dylan Parker to erase East's 1-0 lead in the third period.
In the Class AA semis, Edina resembled the high-speed Hornets from back when Willard Ikola-coached teams dominated everybody with speed and depth in the 1960s and ‘70s, although the Greyhounds held a 1-0 lead through the first two periods. Edina’s relentless pressure overcame the Greyhounds for three straight goals in the third period, feasting on a sudden outcrop of turnovers to take a 3-1 lead the Hornets were able to protect until the finish.
East got an early goal from its big first line, as Jack Forbort dug the puck off the right boards and knocked it toward the slot. Alex Tescano, arriving just in time, moved in forcefully to gain possession and drill a 30-footer past Edina goaltender Willie Benjamin. That goal stood up through the rest of the first period, and the scoreless second period mainly because of East goaltender Dylan Parker and the Greyhounds four stalwart defensemen — Meirs Moore and Philip Beaulieu on one unit, and hard-hitting Andrew Kerr and Alex Trapp on the other.
Those defensemen were able to beat Edina’s speedy attackers and quickly and crisply pass the puck out of their zone. But the Hornets coaches stayed with their pressure game. “We knew East had a tough game yesterday against Moorhead (1-0) and that they are only playing four defensemen,” said Dave Langevin, the former UMD and New York Islanders defenseman who assists Curt Giles on an all-star Edina coaching staff. “Our forwards are so fast, and big, and we could see they were getting tired. We thought if we could keep going after them, we could wear them down. And by the end, they weren’t as quick making their outlet passes.”
“Even though we were down 1-0 after two periods, we could see they were getting tired, so we stayed with what we were doing,” said Giles.
When Edina broke through for the first goal yielded by Dylan Parker in two games, it came when Edina defenseman Parker Reno blocked an outlet try at the blue line and threw a shot on goal. Parker stopped it, but Miguel Fidler, on the right side, scored by drilling the rebound into the far, left edge at 4:11 of the third period to tie the game 1-1.
Tyler Nanne, a grandson of Lou Nanne, was in perfect position 40 feet out in the slot to intercept another hasty outlet try, and he rifled a slap shot past Parker at 11:19. “I actually whiffed on my first shot and it went right to their D,” said Nanne. “When he tried to get it out, fortunately it went right on my stick. We knew East would be tough. When we played them at Christmas time, and the last couple of times we played them, they ran us out of the building. So this time we went after them.”
East goalie Dylan Parker stopped Edina's Dylan Malmquist (20) in Greyhounds 3-2 semifinal setback.
Just 19 seconds after Nanne’s goal, Dylan Malmquist circled the East goal and fed Andy Jordahl, who scored from the slot for a 3-1 lead.
“That third goal killed us,” said East coach Mike Randolph. “There wasn’t much time left, and now we had to make up two. We didn’t get to the point where we could play our game and shut them down. I was really pleased with Parker’s play in goal; every goal they got was on the wrong guy’s stick at the wrong time.”
Meirs Moore gave East new life when he stepped into a slap shot from the left point and blew it by Benjamin to cut the deficit to 3-2, but only 1:46 remained in the third period. “We knew it wasn’t over when I got my goal,” said Moore. “But there wasn’t much time left. I just wish I could have scored it a few minutes earlier.
“They played a solid game,” Moore added. “It got tiring getting hit all the time. They’ve got some big forwards finishing you every time you had the puck.”
That was a departure from the teams of the 1960s and ‘70s. “I remember that because I played against those teams,” said Langevin. This Edina team has similar speed and the ability to apply relentless pressure, and adds the physical dimension.
“We smoked ‘em pretty good in midseason,” Randolph said. “But I’ve watched them, and you could see they were finding their game. They’ve found their game.”
HAWKS OVERCOME BRECK
Both Hermantown and Breck had their moments in their pulsating battle. Hermantown led 1-0 on Chris Benson’s goal at 8:22 of the first period. Bo Gronseth broke through the Breck defense and got a shot away as he was hauled down. Goaltender Henry Johnson blocked it, but Benson was quickly on the rebound, pulling it wide, and then wider, to the left before snapping a shot into the short side of the narrowing angle.
Bo Gronseth (5) and Nate Pionk (6) went hard to Breck net in 4-3 overtime victory.
Thomas Lindstrom tied it 1-1 for Breck with a point blank set up against Hawks goalie Adam Smith with 14 seconds left in the second period, and Breck gained a 2-1 lead when Matt Colford, who had set up the first goal, broke in off the opening faceoff in the second period, and dropped a pass back to Jack O’Connor who scored at 0:12.
The Hawks big line countered for a 2-2 tie when Travis Koepke chased down a rebound and shot from the left, then pulled his rebound back and scored into a narrow angle at 5:56 — quite similar to his linemate Benson’s opening goal. But Breck regained the lead at 3-2 three minutes later when Colford raced in to score with a rebound.
That set the stage for another big goal by Hermantown’s prolific first line, as Gronseth peeled the puck off the end boards and threw a backhand pass to the goal-mouth, where Koepke one-timed it for the 3-3 equalizer.
Thomas Lindgren (16) peeled off after scoring to give Breck a 1-1 tie against Hermantown.
The frantic pace increased through the rest of the third period as the teams exchanged swift rushes and good chances. The Hawks had one of the best, when flashy defenseman Jake Zeleznikar filtered through the defense with a slick play, pulling the puck between his own skates and retrieving it in time to get off a strong shot. In the first overtime, the teams traded chances through all 8 minutes, without scoring. In the second overtime, the Hawks killed a penalty and then attacked, but when Lane LeGarde broke in, Andrew Keiser hooked him and sent him sprawling into the goal. The officials surprisingly called for a penalty shot. But Johnson stymied LeGarde’s attempt, at 6:31 of the 17-minute session.
The Hawks momentum carried on, and after another good chance, Nate Pionk — the sophomore half of the brother act — came up with a key play. Carrying up the right side 2-on-2, he barged between the two defenders, pushing the puck ahead one-handed and as he was hauled down by the two, he got the puck ahead to Zach Kramer at the top of the right circle, and his quick, hard shot beat Johnson to the far pipe and in, giving the Hawks their victory 4-3.
“I was just trying to throw it on net,” said Kramer.
Bruce Plante, his coach, took over from there. “He’s never scored a big goal in his life, so he didn’t know how to act,” said Plante. “Zach was our hero. Actually, we have no award for whoever is our hero every game. We’ll probably slap him up when we get him back to the locker room to keep him humble.”
Kramer was asked if he might have scored any big goals his coach didn’t know about. “No,” he said. “That was my highlight, for sure.”
Greyhounds nip Moorhead to gain semis
By John Gilbert
SAINT PAUL, MN.
Goaltender Dylan Parker had only three shutouts during the regular season, but he recorded his third in the playoffs by stifling Moorhead’s best shots Thursday to guide Duluth East to a nail-biting 1-0 victory over Moorhead in the opening game of the Class AA quarterfinals in the Minnesota Hockey Tournament at Xcel Center.
East goalie Dylan Parker got help from defenseman Alex Trapp to blank the Spuds.
The victory puts the Greyhounds (25-4) into Friday night’s 6 p.m. first semifinal against Edina, with their winning streak now extended to 17 straight, a string that started after losing to Denfeld in a 5-4 upset on January 8. It also was the fewest goals East has scored in that streak, during which the Hounds scored 81 goals, an averag of 4.8 goals per game. The Hounds were shut out twice in their first seven games, by Wayzata and by Breck, which were the only two games they scored less than on Thursday. But when the flashy scoring went away, the defense remained solid, and behind them there was Parker.
East’s offense will have to find its rhythm against Edina (23-6), which romped to a 9-3 victory over outmanned Lakeville North in the second semifinal.
Thursday night’s quarterfinals sent Hill-Murray and Wayzata into the second Friday night semifinal. Hill-Murray beat Eastview 6-3, jumping to a 4-0 lead before Eastview battled back to 4-2, and then 5-2 before it became 5-3, and finally settled by Sam Barker’s shot from the blue line that glanced in off a defenseman’s knee with 5:59 left. The Pioneers outshot Eastview 34-17, and got goals from six different scorers.
The final game was the day’s classic, as Wayzata slipped past Centernnial 2-1 in overtime, when Chase Haller threw a blind pass from behind the net to the crease, and when the puck glanced out to the slot, Chjase Heising put it past goaltender Patrick Munson at 4:01 of sudden-death. Centennial took a 1-0 lead on Adam Anderson’s goal in the first miniute of the second period. Wayzata goalie Aaron Dingmann fell returning to the crease from behind the net, just as Andrew Bertrand forced a shot that squeezed past Dingmann and the goal post, winding up on Andersoon’s stick for an easy shot.
Centennial appeared to make it 2-0 when Anderson’s shot was partially blocked, then covered by a sprawling Dingmann, who got his glove on the puck as it crossed the line. Several replays appeared to verify that the puck never quite made it fully across the line, but one view, looking into the goal, appeared to show white between the line and the puck, but the review staff disallowed the goal. That proved huge when Munson pulled out a half-dozen big saves and flashes of great luck. His best goaltending move was when Wayzata’s Akash Batra and Brian Machut came out of the left corner 2-on-0, but Munson poke-checked the puck off Batra’s stick. It appeared the 1-0 edge would last, but the puck popped free to the slot and Jalen Wahl’s quick move punctured Munson’s shutout with only 1:15 remaining.
The Trojans (22-7) may want to start scoring earlier if they hope to beat top-seeded Hill-Murray in the semifinals.
Duluth East’s first line has been a big-scoring unit all season, but the underlying reason for the Greyhounds success has been the always-solid and often-spectacular play of the defensive corps. That means It helps, of course, to have those goal outbursts to establish a margin, and that’s happened often enough that goaltender Dylan Parker gets overlooked.
But Thursday was a day the big line didn’t score, and while the defense and team defense was near flawless, it also was Parker’s day to grab the spotlight. Jack Kolar, who had played strong but with only four goals all season, scored No. 5 on a low 30-foot bullet early in the second period, and that was it.
Junior defenseman Philip Beaulieu made the critical play at 1:13 of the seconds period, rushing out of his end and passing to his left where Alex Tescano caught the pass and quickly relayed it back to the slot. The pass was just ahead of Beaulieu, but right on the tape of Kolar’s stick. He cut to his left and fired a low 30-footer into the short side.
“My line usually tries to shoot and go get rebounds,” said Kolar. “Our ‘D’ moved the puck up and I got it in the middle. I went left, and shot into the lower left.”
Ryan Lundgren (21) and Alex Tescano were stopped by Moorhead goalie Jacob Dittmer.
When Moorhead arose for a stirring rally in the third period, however, Parker was rock-solid, and the Greyhounds made the 1-0 lead stand up.
“I felt comfortable in the nets today,” said Parker, who has given up only four goals in his last seven games. He concluded the season with shutouts against Lakeville North and Tartan in two of the last three games, then blanked St. Michael-Albertville and Cloquet-Esko-Carlton in the Section 7 AA tournament. “It’s easy when you great team defense in front of you.”
Randolph wasn’t sure if it was Parker’s best day. “What did they have, five shots after two periods?” Randolph said. “Then they came on and he had to make some big saves. It’s very difficult for a goaltender to play that kind of game.”
“We were tight, Moorhead was tight, and really it was an ugly game. But we’re used to ugly games. And now we’re playing at 6 tomorrow — we survived, and we’re on to the semis.”
East nearly made it 2-0 with five minutes remaining in the third period. Kolar fired a hard shot from the left side, and Jacob Dittmer, Moorhead’s 6-foot-2 sophomore goaltender blocked the shot, but left the rebound right in the slot. East’s Tyler Sworsky grabbed the rebound and cut to his right, pulling the puck with a deft “toe-drag” wide to the right, then flipping a backhander low toward the open net. Suddenly, though, it was open no more, as Dittmer, sprawled, lunged to catch it in his glove. The force of the shot pushed his glove back almost to the goal line, but he held it out.
Moorhead sophomore Jacob Dittmer came up with a save on Jack Forbort of East.
“I was just trying to get any piece of my body in front of it,” Dittmer said. “I realized how close to the line I was and I was looking for that post to make sure I stayed outside of it.”
Moorhead coach Peter Cullen, the cousin of current Wild and former St. Cloud State and Moorhead star Matt Cullen, is in his first year at the helm of the Spuds, and was asked about Randolph, who recently coached his 500th victory. “I have a lot of respect for a man who’s touched a lot of young men, and I hope I can do the same,” said Cullen. “I know it’s a bee’s-nest up there, with a lot of criticism, and players moving and all that. He deals with it, and keeps on doing well.”
Randolph, on the other hand, says this team is filled with a special cohesiveness. “Our locker room is solid, and this is one of my favorite groups,” he said. “There hasn’t been a lot of whining, and I can’t remember any other team I’ve had being so cohesive.”
Meirs Moore, one of the captains, and a frequent rusher from defense, reflected on his three straight years of state tournaments. “Our sophomore year, we were fortunate to make it to the championship game,” he said. “Last year, we pretty much dominated teams, and maybe we took it for granted we’d get back to the championship game. But we lost to Lakeville South in the quarterfinals. This year, I had mixed thoughts. We didn’t want to take anything for granted, and I didn’t want to go to Mariucci [for consolation games].”
Instead, the Greyhounds and Hornets will lock up in another of their usually intense battles in the 6 p.m. semifinal.
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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