Cold-shooting Hilltoppers fall 53-36 to Long Prairie-Grey Eagle
BRAINERD, MINN. — Everything had to be perfect for Marshall to survive its state Class AA basketball tournament opener against Long Prairie-Grey Eagle. And things were far from perfect. The Hilltoppers picked a bad time to be cold from the floor, and fell to the taller, smoother Thunder 53-36 before a lively crowd of 2,200 at the Brainerd High School gymnasium.
For the Hilltoppers (17-9) to puncture Long Prairie-Grey Eagle’s considerable height advantage and impenetrable zone defense, they had to connect from long range — three-point land. But only 5-foot-7 guard Dan Baumgartner was able to find his shooting touch, and he didn’t get the ball enough to make a difference.
“Against that tough of a zone, and against such big, athletic kids, you’ve got to hit those shots,” said Marshall coach Todd Clark. “We knew about Matt Siegle, and we tried different things to stop him, but their other guys came through and hit their open shots. We tried to find a guy who wouldn’t hit those shots, but they all did.”
Siegle is a smooth, left-handed 6-foot-7 star who has committed to St. Cloud State. The Hilltoppers’ Pete Newstrom kept an eye on Siegle — pun intended — and got help from collapsing defenders front and rear. Together, they limited Siegle to 13 points, even though Newstrom is only 6-0, and didn’t get clearance to play because of an eye injury until just before the game, and he played wearing goggles. But 6-3 junior Aaron Pohlmann added 12 points, while junior guard Matt Larson also got 12 and senior Tony Larson got 10 more for the Thunder (18-9).
Baumgartner had 15 points to lead both teams in scoring. Justin Nelson added 10 and Adam Machones 9. But Marshall was hindered when Ian Kramer, the big 6-foot-8 junior center, got into foul trouble trying to cope with the bigger Long Prairie-Grey Eagle inside game and had to spend time on the bench with four fouls.
Baumgartner was 4-12 on 3-point shots, making two of his 3s on either side of a muscular inside basket by Luke Mirau to end the third quarter, closing the deficit to 33-28. Baumgartner made his other two 3s to open the fourth quarter, which kept Marshall in the game at 43-34.
At that point, Marshall went to a full-court press, but after freshman Adam Machones sank two free throws to cut it to 43-36, the Hilltoppers never scored again through the final 3:22, so when they fouled to get possession, it backfired, with the Thunder calmly scoring the last 10 points — six of them on free throws.
“I just with I could have started hitting earlier in the game,” said Baumgartner, a fiery 5-foot-7 guard. “I just wanted to win. Matt Siegle is a tough guy to play against, give them all the credit in the world. But they sat back in their zone, and if our shots don’t fall, it’s pretty tough.”
Earlier in the game, nobody looked like they were going to score. With the big crowd whooping it up, and the high school gym trying to portray a state tournament atmosphere instead of just another road trip, a Baumgartner free throw was the only point of the first three minutes. After Siegle scored, Justin Nelson scored one basket, then stole the ball and scored on a dunk for a 5-2 Marshall lead.
Pohlmann made two free throws and three consecutive baskets for a personal 8-point run, and Ryan Tschida’s basket made it 12-5, and the Thunder was never headed. In fact, Pohlmann made 10 of the Thunder’s first 14 points, then only scored two points after that.
Marshall made a bid early in the second quarter, when Machones drilled a 3, but Siegle came right back with a 3 for Long Prairie-Grey Eagle. Nelson hit another 3 for the Hilltoppers to close it to 18-14, and it stayed there until halftime.
The pivotal factor in the game, however, was that as a team, Long Prairie-Grey Eagle hit 15 of 38 shots, 4-10 on 3s, and 11-28 on the rest; Marshall hit only 13-for-52 for the game, 7-28 in 3 attempts and only 6-24 trying to shoot over the taller Thunder. Marshall was 3-4 on free throws, but the Thunder was 19-23.
When Baumgartner started to connect, Nelson had a tough night, going 2-for-13 from 3-point range and 2-for-8 otherwise.
“But he’s a streak shooter,” said Clark. “Danny got hot there for a while, but every time we made a little run, we just couldn’t get the lead. I’m proud of our guys, they played hard and they played till the last minute. It hurt when Ian got his fourth foul early, because he had the responsibility for guarding one and three-quarters guys.”
That also left Peter Newstrom with the bigger task of giving up 7 inches to Siegle and trying to stop him. Newstrom, who caught a finger in his left eye in the section final against Pequot Lakes, wasn’t sure he could play until earlier Tuesday.
“It’s a torn retina,” Newstrom said. “We had two game plans, one if I could play and one if I couldn’t. I knew if I was going to play, I’d be guarding Sielge. We had Ian and Luke (Mirau) helping on the backside, but the open shots his teammates made hurt us worse than Siegle.”
UMD women face Niagara in NCAA Frozen Four semifinals
Making the NCAA Frozen Four was never in doubt for UMD women’s hockey coach Shannon Miller. But her optimism, which was connected to the Bulldogs high numerical rating on the computer index charts, was verified Sunday when UMD was invited to try to defend its victory in the first NCAA women’s tournament.
UMD (22-6-4) will take on Niagara (26-7-1) in one semifinal at Durham, N.H., Friday, while Minnesota (28-3-5) will meet Brown (24-7-2) in the other. The winners will play Sunday for the national championship.
Some skeptics thought UMD would be bypassed because they had faltered in recent weeks, losing to Wisconsin in the WCHA playoff semifinals. But while UMD’s winning percentage slipped to only sixth best in the country, the Bulldogs had strong figures in all other significant criteria.
The selection committee goes by the Ratings Percentage Index, a computerized system that calculates winning percentage, opponents’ winning percentage, and opponents’ opponents winning percentage. Those figures, computed along with head-to-head meetings of teams under consideration go into the RPI.
UMD finished third in the final rating, behind Minnesota and Niagara. Dartmouth and Northeastern were in the running, until Brown beat them to win the ECAC tournament.
In winning percentage, Minnesota was first, followed by Northeastern, Dartmouth, Niagara, Brown and UMD. But in opponents’ winning percentage, UMD was third, behind only St. Cloud State and Minnesota. And UMD was first in opponents’ opponents percentage. Combining those into the total RPI, UMD ranked second behind Minnesota.
Denver beats Gophers for WCHA playoff title
ST. PAUL, MINN. — Denver was the best team all season in the WCHA, but Minnesota was the hottest team in the nation coming into their WCHA playoff final, having won eight straight games and 11 of their last 12.
But Saturday night, Denver’s cool, poised and methodical attack scored in all three periods and beat the Gophers 5-2 in the championship game of the WCHA Final Five tournament, before 18,126 fans at Xcel Energy Center.
It was the first time since North Dakota in 1997 that the same team had won the MacNaughton Cup for the regular-season WCHA title and the Broadmoor Trophy as playoff champ. The big crowd ran the five-game tournament total to 75,151, eclipsing the year-old record set last year, the first in the Xcel Center. Adjusted tournament crowds for suite sales were 13,103 Thursday night, 12,438 Friday afternoon, 18,523 Friday night, and 12,961 Saturday afternoon, before last night’s 18,126.
The Gophers played hard, from start to finish, but were foiled by the brilliant goaltending of Wade Dubielewicz, who made 38 saves, as if he needed to reinforce his stature as the league’s top goalie by adding the tournament most valuable player award.
The Pioneers were pro-like in their attention to detail and error-free play in their own zone. David Neale scored in the first period, Kevin Ulanski and Max Bull in the second, and, after the Gophers closed it to 3-2 by the second intermission, the Pioneers finished it when Greg Barber scored on a breakaway at 8:11 of the third period. Barber punctured Minnesota’s final hopes by flipping a long clearing pass up the left boards, that Kevin Doell raced to and backhanded into an empty net from an extremely wide angle with 45 seconds remaining.
Denver (32-7-1) and Minnesota (29-8-4) are both certain to advance to the NCAA tournament, which begins next week, and they are expected to be joined by Colorado College and St. Cloud State as well.
Colorado College (26-12-3) finished a gruelling three games in less than three days stretch by beating St. Cloud State 2-1 in the third-place game, as Jeff Sanger, the goaltender who beat Wisconsin in overtime Thursday and lost 3-0 to Denver in Friday’s semifinals, came back to stop 35 of 36 shots. St. Cloud State is 29-10-2. The Huskies lost twice in two days at the Final Five, a tournament they won last year. This year, that was left to the Gophers and Denver to decide.
Denver struck for a 1-0 lead in the first period on a goal by Neale at 3:32. The Pioneers had an early power play when Erik Wendell was called for hooking Greg Keith into a breakaway spill that resulted in a head-first tumble into the goal post at 2:25. Ryan Caldwell carried deep on the right and passed to the slot where Neale only got a piece of his shot, but enough to send it sliding under the armpit of the sprawling Adam Hauser.
The Pioneers made it 2-0 when Jesse Cook fired from the right point at 1:29 of the second period and the puck hit Kevin Ulanski, who was jostling for position in front of the net when the puck hit him and glanced in.
Minnesota cut it to 2-1 on a controversial goal that had to withstand a video review exactly one minute later. Barry Tallackson rushed up the left and passed hard across the slot, but the puck hit Tallackson’s skate and caromed back to defenseman Keith Ballard, who quickly shot it into the left edge, past goaltender Wade Dubielewicz — the first goal he had allowed in two tournament games.
Referee Tom Goddard was summoned to pause while the goal was reviewed. The replay showed that just before the goal, Wendell had skated directly into the crease and kicked Dubliewicz’s left leg. The goalie was understandably knocked to his left, just as the shot flew past him on his right. While officials in this tournament have whistled play dead and faced off outside the zone for merely skating through the crease, this time they decided to allow the goal and it was 2-1.
Undaunted, Denver came back to make it 3-1 at 4:03 when a forechecker knocked the puck free from Jeff Taffe in the Gopher zone, and Max Bull moved in to drill a slapshot into the left edge of the goal.
The Gophers got a key goal back at 13:38 of the middle period, when former Duluth East star Nick Angell cranked a power-play shot from the left point, wide to the left, where Riddle was able to deflect it past Dubliewicz and make it 3-2.
But when the Gophers pressed in the third period, the Pioneers sprung Greg Barber for a breakaway, and Barber rushed up the left side, cutting to the net unmolested and firing a shot that hit Hauser’s legpad and carried in at 8:11.
The game took an odd turn after that. Hauser, possibly frustrated, was called for slashing at 11:13, and Grant Potulny served the sentence. At 12:48, Hauser stepped out, grabbed and body-slammed Denver’s Greg Keith and was called for holding, this time with Dan Welch serving for him. That left the Gophers, in need of a rally, but instead killing a two-man disadvantage — both via penalties on the goalkeeper.
CC UPENDS HUSKIES 2-1
Colorado College, hoping to secure its position in the NCAA field, battled St. Cloud State as well as exhaustion and came up winning both matches. Not that it was easy. The Huskies, trying to get things together after a faltering finish, outshot the Tigers 36-25 and took the early 1-0 lead on a goal by Colin Peters.
But after Peters scored at 5:02, goaltender Jeff Sanger simply slammed the door on the Huskies, who stumble into the NCAA having gone 3-5 in their last eight games. The Tigers tied it on a screened shot from center point by Richard Petiot at 6:39 of the first period, and the go-ahead goal came at 3:48 of the second, when Chris Hartsburg scored a power play goal on a rush to the slot.
After that, it was all goaltending, and while Dean Weasler played well for St. Cloud, Sanger was flawless the rest of the way for CC.
“Jeff Sanger gave us three outstanding games in less than three days,” said CC coach Scott Owens.
Hartsburg chose to talk more about his goaltender than his goal. “I just want to say that Jeff Sanger is the reason we’re here. He made five unbelievable saves in the third period,” said Hartsburg. “Jeff has put us in position to go into the NCAA and maybe make some noise there.”
Sanger said as a senior, he recalls vividly when Colorado College lost to Michigan State in the final minutes of the NCAA regional at Madison, preventing the Tigers from going to the final four. The next year, the Tigers were upset and didn’t even reach the WCHA Final Five. “As seniors, we realize how close we were to making it, and we try to instill the feeling to the freshmen that when you get a chance, make the most of it because you don’t know when you’ll get another chance.”
ALL-TOURNAMENT
The all-tournament team included Denver’s goaltender Wade Dubielewicz, who also was most valuable player, plus Chris Paradise at a forward slot and defenseman Ryan Caldwell, plus Gophers Jordan Leopold on defense and Troy Riddle at forward. The other forward was Colorado College center Mark Cullen.
Range native helps Gophers get into WCHA final
ST. PAUL, MINN. — Minnesota and Denver skated into the WCHA playoff championship game tonight with victories that made Friday a big day for homestate hockey at the Xcel Energy Center, where a state record college hockey crowd of 18,523 watched the Gophers whip St. Cloud State 4-1 in the second semifinal.
The Gophers (29-7-4) worked steadily and hard to pull ahead of the arch-rival Huskies, while goaltender Adam Hauser, who is from Coleraine, blanked St. Cloud State until the middle of the third period, when the Gophers already had four goals on the board. Homestaters Jordan Leopold, Troy Riddle, Jeff Taffe and Matt Koalska got the Minnesota goals, while Johnny Pohl set up two of them and Riddle added two assists to his goal.
“Our big guys played big, and Adam played great in goal,” said Gopher coach Don Lucia, who is from Grand Rapids. “Adam was very good when he had to be, and he has been the whole second half of the season.”
In the afternoon semifinal, Denver University (31-7-1) beat Colorado College 3-0 in quite similar fashion — scoring a goal in each period, two of them by Twin Cities native Chris Paradise, then entrusting the lead to all-WCHA goaltender Wade Dubielewicz, who stopped all 26 CC shots.
St. Cloud State (29-9-2) and Colorado College (25-12-3) meet at 2 p.m. in the third place game, which could become important for NCAA seeding, because all four semifinalists are expected to be named to the 12-team NCAA tournament field on Sunday.
The festive atmosphere was enhanced by the announcement that the WCHA had torn up the remaining two years on its contract with the Xcel Center and had agreed on a new five-year deal that will keep the Final Five at the same site through 2006. The WCHA is celebrating its 50th anniversary by entertaining its 50 greatest players, voted on by a panel. For last night’s game, the ceremonial puck drop was conducted by ex Gophers Neal Broten from Roseau and Robb Stauber from Duluth, and by former UMD Bulldogs Tom Kurvers and Bill Watson. All four were Hobey Baker Award winners in their college days.
“It was a great atmosphere, and it was really special to be down there coaching in a game like this,” said St. Cloud State coach Craig Dahl. “But give full credit to Minnesota. They played a real strong game, and ‘Doogie’ Hauser played very well. It’s kind of a role-reversal from last year, where we beat them three straight times. Now they’ve beaten us three straight.”
The Gophers struck early, when Pohl fed Riddle for a hard shot from right wing. St. Cloud State goaltender Jake Moreland kicked out his right leg and got a toe on the shot, but the rebound bounced straight out the slot, and Leopold was first to it, slamming a shot that glanced past Moreland only 55 seconds after the opening faceoff.
The goal was the 20th of the season for all-WCHA defenseman Leopold, breaking the school record for single-season goals by a defenseman.
The teams traded penalties the rest of the first period, and on through the action-filled second period. Both teams have lived by the power play all season, yet St. Cloud was 1-for-8 and Minnesota 1-for-6 in the game. “I think it was a case of two teams used to being on big rinks, and all of a sudden the ice surface shrinks,” said Lucia. “Also, we just played each other two weeks ago, and everybody knows everybody else so well.”
Only 17 seconds before the middle period ended, the Gophers took some of the steam out of the Huskies when Pohl caught a pass from behind as he broke toward the net, then he curled to his right, luring full attention of the defense, only to leave a neat little back pass for Riddle, who got off an explosive slapshot that beat Moreland and caught the extreme left edge of the net.
“We had three chances to get the puck out, then three of our guys go to John Pohl and lead Riddle alone,” said Dahl. “That was a back-breaker.”
The 2-0 lead was expanded 35 seconds into the third period, when Jeff Taffe cut right to left across the slot, and drilled a hard wrist shot just past a screening body and into the upper right extremity of the net for a 3-0 cushion. At 7:03, Koalska backhanded a rebound in for a power-play goal and a 4-0 Gopher lead.
Moreland skated to the bench three minutes later and said he couldn’t continue because of a strained groin muscle, and Dean Weasler played the last 10 minutes. That had no effect on the offense, but the Huskies did retaliate for a goal at 11:32, when Ryan Malone moved in unmolested from the right corner and forced a shot through Hauser on a power play to make it 4-1. Malone won’t play today because of a separated shoulder.
DENVER BLANKS CC
Denver’s victory was remarkably similar. Chris Paradise, who grew up 10 miles north of Xcel Center in Shoreview, scored midway through the first period to stake the Pioneers to a 1-0 lead, which could have been worse but for the sterling play of CC goaltender Jeff Sanger, who also played in Thursday night’s overtime victory over Wisconsin to qualify for the semifinals.
Greg Keith made it 2-0 at 14:10 of the second period, capitalizing when a careless back-pass in the neutral zone slid between the two Tiger defensemen, and Keith got to it first for a breakaway. Paradise came through again at 12:10 of the third period with the play of the game.
Rushing end to end up the left boards, Paradise put on a late burst of speed, then turned the corner and powered past the last defenseman, veering in front of the net, from where he flicked a late shot up into the short side.
“I thought we played methodically to come out and win each period 1-0,” said Denver coach George Gwozdecky, the league’s coach of the year. “We’ve had three goals from the start of the season, and winning the regular season was not even one of them. First was winning the WCHA playoff championship, second was qualifying for a first-round bye in the NCAA, and third was winning the national championship.
“Chris Paradise has been looking forward to coming back here to play in front of his family and friends. He has tremendous skills, he’s big, strong, and his two goals — especially the second one — are typical of what he can do.”
Paradise said: “The only time I was ever in Xcel Center was when I was home at Christmas and went to a Wild game. It’s always been a dream of mine to play in the WCHA, and another dream is to come home and have a chance to win the WCHA championship here.”
However, if Denver is the league’s best regular-season team, they must get by the Gophers — the league’s hottest team right now.
Grand Rapids tops East on last-second shot, faces Princeton
Eric Webb dribbled down the Romano Gym court Wednesday night — through the entire Duluth East team, through the final 10 seconds, and, after hitting a short jump shot as the final second ticked away, through a major Section 7AAA basketball challenge, lifting Grand Rapids to a 42-40 semifinal victory.
The Thunderhawks return to the UMD campus Friday night, in search of a trip to the state boys basketball tournament when they face Princeton, a team that has fully emerged from an 0-12 start to the season by stunning Denfeld 70-50 to reach the final at 8-19.
Grand Rapids (26-1) had all it could handle from East (11-16), which threw everything at the Thunderhawks. East trailed 3-0, then led 9-5 and maintained the upper hand through much of the first half. When Grand Rapids jumped ahead in the second half, East scrambled to stay close, and the game evolved to a duel between Grand Rapids’ attempt to stall and East’s pressing defense. But in the final minute, the Greyhounds took on a 40-34 deficit in the final minute and came on strong, as Ben Grams made two free throws, Ryan Crain stole the ball off the press and went in for a layup, and Cory Johnson tied it 40-all with 0:10 remaining.
Having beaten East by two in double overtime and by 32 in the rematch, Rapids had seen the best and the worst of the Greyhounds. The Thunderhawks also were missing Dom Flood, their No. 2 scorer with a 15.2 average, because he had sprained his ankle in Tuesday’s practice. But in the end, nothing could prevent Grand Rapids from winning its 24th straight.
“I knew East would play hard,” said Grand Rapids coach Rod Eidelbes. “They had a great game plan, to double on Eric (Webb) up high, and they did a great job to get back and tie the ballgame. We had guys like Nate Lloyd and Corey Rondeau step up and Kyle Schmidt did a nice job in the third quarter. With 10 seconds left, we wanted to put the ball in the guy’s hands who had confidence in his ability.”
That was Eric West, even though West had been stifled with only seven points, against an average of 22.5, to that point in the game. But the Greyhounds didn’t want to foul and lose the game to a late free throw, and as they backed off from the press that had gotten them back into the game, West kept dribbling. He crossed midcourt, maneuvered toward the free throw line, then kept right on going, finally tossing up a 5-foot jump shot that dropped through the net as the clock clicked from 0:01 to 0:00.
“East played a real good game,” said Webb. “I don’t know if we were surprised, but hopefully we got all our misses our of our system tonight. With 10 seconds left, we wanted to bring it down to the end, and make sure we didn’t leave them any time, because East fights well We were either going to win or go to overtime. When I came down the floor, I wanted to put it up, but if they would have doubled on me, we’ve got a lot of guys who can shoot. I was able to find a gap.”
Webb wound up with only 9 points, while Nate Lloyd led Grand Rapids with 15, Corey Rondeau had 8 and Schmidt scored 7, all in the third quarter. East scrapped and battled, with Johnson getting 12, Grams 11 and Crain 8.
“It was rough to end it like this,” said Crain. “But we fought hard the whole game. There’s no ‘give’ on this team; I’m proud of our guys. Everybody put us at underdogs all year. We didn’t get our ‘double’ over quick enough on that last shot. Our plan was to try to keep Webb from scoring. No doubt about it, Eric Webb is a great basketball player, and the only chance we had to win was to keep him down.”
East coach Chuck Tolo said: “Against a guy as good as Webb, you’ve got to do something different. Nobody in Northern Minnesota can guard Webb 1-on-1, so we were really trying to get the game out of Webb’s hands and let somebody else beat us. But big players hit big shots, and that’s what he did at the end.”
If Grand Rapids survived despite having one of its key players on crutches, Princeton came out for the second game and made such disabilities trendy. Senior Matt Anderson, the Tigers top rebounder, was on crutches for a knee ligament injury, and Eli McVey, a junior guard who is the team’s No. 2 scorer, tried to play on an injured foot but couldn’t go.
On top of those problems, Princeton came into the game with a 7-19 record, having started off 0-12. “I guess you could say we’re peaking at the right time,” said Princeton caoch Thomas Henke, “but at midseason, I couldn’t see any peak. But the kids hung in there.”
The Tigers opened with a couple of threes, but Denfeld came back to gain a 10-8 lead at the end of the first quarter. But Mark Patnode hit his second, third and fourth threes of the game, launching aerial bombs from deep in the right corner as the Tigers scored the first seven points of the second quarter and 10 of the first 12, while taking a 22-16 halftime lead. The Hunters’ shooting turned from hopeful to icy cold in the third quarter, as Chad DeHart scored eight of Princeton’s 17 points in the third quarter as the Tigers extended their lead to 39-27.
While much smaller, Princeton’s quickness bedeviled the Hunters throughout the game and when the game turned run-and-gun in the fourth quarter, the Tigers’ little players were moving inside and scoring at will, running up a 31-23 margin to win, literally, going away. Tim Solomon scored 11 and Matt Lien 10 for Denfeld, while Princeton’s DeHart scored 18 — 16 of them in the second half — while Patnode had 15, and Paul Burroughs 12.
“We didn’t shoot the ball very well,” said Denfeld coach Jeff Nace. “But give Princeton credit. Their quickness gave us problems. We wanted to play a zone, but we couldn’t when they hit their shots.”
Princeton coach Henke shrugged off the challenge of facing powerful Grand Rapids Friday night and said he hadn’t even thought about it yet. When your team starts out 0-12, you don’t ever look past the game at hand, even if you wind up in the section final at 8-19.
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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