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.”
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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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