East wins 7AA, parents pay the price

Trevor Olson scored off a pass from Jake Randolph (far left) to give Duluth East a 2-1 overtime victory over Grand Rapids in the Section 7AA title game.

By John Gilbert

After Duluth East pulled out a dramatic 2-1 victory over Grand Rapids in the Section 7AA hockey championship final, East coach Mike Randolph was being interviewed in the raucus East dressing room when his kid, Jake, tapped him on the shoulder and said, “Dad, can I have some money?” Coach Randolph shelled out.

Just a couple of minutes earlier, out on the AMSOIL Arena ice, East was behind 1-0 with 1:30 remaining in the third period when Jake Randolph, a junior with hockey vision beyond his years, threw a pass around the boards to the right point where Nate Repensky went D-to-D to Meirs Moore, a sophomore, who flung a quick, screened wrist shot that snared the upper right corner of the net. That forced overtime, and on the first shift, Moore threw the puck around the boards where Jake Randolph caught it, facing the boards. Jake heard linemate Trevor Olson call out to him andhe immediately threw a no-look pass out front, right on the tape, and Olson scored at 0:26 to win the game 2-1 and send East to the state tournament.

I asked Mike how much he gave his kid, and he said, “20 bucks.” I asked if that was more than usual, and he grinned, and said, “Definitely.” I suggested to Jake Randolph that he might want to go on and study finance in college, because his timing was perfect. The Greyhounds and their big line had been harnessed all game by Grand Rapids, and when they really needed a couple of creative plays under the pressure of facing the end of their season, there was Jake, making them. How could his greatly relieved dad turn him down?

As I was leaving the arena, Skeeter Moore, the former East and UMD winger, and the father of Meirs Moore, was waiting in the lobby when Meirs, his kid, came up behind him. “Dad,” he said, “will you take my stuff so I can go get something to eat?” His dad said, “OK,” and again, how could he turn him down? I couldn’t resist, so I called Meirs back and said, “You’ve got to take better advantage of things after winning a game like this, because Jake Randolph got $20 from his dad.” Meirs Moore smiled, and said, “I already got $20, from my mom.” And he left the building.

State high school hockey weekend in Minnesota is close to being a religious experience, a teenage revival on the ice at Xcel Energy Center in Saint Paul. It’s a good time to see how your predictions are coming out, because the Class A quarterfinals were played Wednesday, and the Class AA quarterfinals Thursday–after this was written, but before it hit the streets. It is very risky to deal with predictions when the games being predicted are already over. But we’re up to that task.

Rarely have hockey fans in Duluth had a greater treat than watching the clever puck-moving of UMD’s high-tempo, high-skill line of Jack Connolly centering Mike Connolly and Justin Fontaine, and maybe just as captivating is watching Duluth East’s all-junior line of Dom Toninato centering Jake Randolph and Trevor Olson. Fontaine is a senior, while the two Connollys will return next season for their senior year, while East’s slick line should be even more amazing next year as seniors. Toninato is a big, strong center, Olson is an outstanding goal-scorer, and Randolph can outfox any defense with the same skill as he displayed to lift $20 from his dad. That magical threesome could play intact for Minnesota, St. Cloud State, Bemidji State, Nebraska-Omaha, North Dakota, or Wisconsin, but they’d look best wearing UMD jerseys. We can only wonder if UMD coach Scott Sandelin has considered recruiting East’s remarkable line intact. It would be a natural.

Patrick Moore (9) spotted a loose puck and scored to give Grand Rapids a 1-0 lead in the 7AA final.

Before the Class A sectional playoffs began, my prediction was that Hermantown would meet St. Thomas Academy in the Saturday championship game. By both making the field, that possibility remained as the quarterfinals were held Wednesday.

In Class AA, it was far more muddled, with many more elite teams battling for supremacy. East had all it could handle from Grand Rapids in the 7AA final, as Patrick Moore’s goal in the second period gave the Thunderhawks a 1-0 lead that lasted until only 1:30 remained, when Meirs Moore scored to tie it up and force overtime. On the first shift of overtime, East sent the crowd of 5,021 at AMSOIL Arena into bedlam when Jake Randolph backhanded a no-look pass out front and Trevor Olson drilled it past goaltender Dom DeGuiseppi at 0:26 for the victory and the chance to go to Saint Paul.

The high school league asks the coaches to seed teams 1-through-4 for the state, then they draw the other four names to oppose them, in both classes. Proponents argued that the top two teams rarely meet in the final, so they should be seeded in opposite brackets to prevent them from meeting in the first or second round. My counter-argument is that if the constantly rotating match-ups of sections caused the top two to play in the first round, at least they played. Only one of them can win the title anyway, and so often, when seeded in opposite brackets, one of them doesn’t reach the final, so they never meet.

For my prediction to make it in Class A, No. 2 Hermantown would have to have beaten Alexandria Wednesday.  Only a considerable upset by Alex (12-15-1) could have prevented the Hawks from improving their 23-3-2 record while advancing to Friday’s semifinals. If the Hawks did advance, they could wind up smack dab against Hibbing, a talented team that beat Virginia in the section final, and one that’s capable of continuing to win. Hibbing was an underdog to No. 3 seeded Rochester Lourdes, even though both teams came into the tournament with identical 17-9-2 records. How the seeding folks underestimate the pride of the Iron Range! Further in Class A, it is neat to see New Ulm (21-4-2) make it to state, but they had to face St. Thomas Academy (22-6), the No. 1 seed, in the quarterfinals.

That winner would meet the Thief River Falls (19-8-1)-Breck (20-8) winner.  Perhaps the biggest surprise in Class A sectionals was Thief River Falls, which has the neatest nickname in all of high school sports — the “Prowlers”– eliminating Warroad in the 8A final.  Warroad, along with Hermantown and St.Thomas Academy, are all perennial Class A powers, and, as such, should be playing Class AA, where they would also be very competitive.

My pre-sectional picks for Class AA were that the best teams in the state were Hill-Murray, Eden Prairie, Wayzata, Maple Grove, Edina, and Duluth East. Not necessarily in that order.  Eden Prairie and Wayzata were in the same section, so only one of them could make it, but if other favorites prevailed, I think the four seeded teams would have been: 1. Hill-Murray, 2. Eden Prairie, 3. Maple Grove, 4. Edina, with Duluth East and the others sprinkled in against those four.

But in a pair of overtime thrillers, White Bear Lake knocked off Hill-Murray in their annual grudge match, and Blaine took out a very impressive Maple Grove team. That meant Eden Prairie moved up to No. 1, Edina to No. 2, Duluth East became No.3, and Eagan, which beat Apple Valley in its final, got No. 4. Among at-large entries, Moorhead (18-7-2) beat Roseau and then top-seeded Bemidji in the 8AA final, to earn the Thursday night finale against Eagan (17-6-2), right after Eden Prairie (21-5-2) faced Lakeville North (13-14-1). That scenario indicates the East may have benefited more than anyone by upsets in other sections.

“I think that’s probably true,” said East coach Mike Randolph, before trucking his Greyhounds to the Twin Cities. “If Hill-Murray and Maple Grove both had made it, my guess is that we wouldn’t have been seeded.”

There is a tremendous advantage to be a seeded team facing a dangerous White Bear Lake team instead of being an unseeded team that might have drawn Eden Prairie or Edina or Hill-Murray. My pre-tournament pick showed East beating White Bear Lake after Edina beats Blaine in a shootout, to set up a rematch of Edina’s 4-3 victory over the Greyhounds at Xcel Center. In the night quarterfinals, I picked Eden Prairie to rout Lakeville North, possibly hitting double figures, while Eagan escapes to beat Moorhead. If that happens, I’ll take East to beat Edina in a classic, while Eden Prairie rips Eagan.

Trevor Olson's shot, set up by linemates Jake Randolph (16) and Dom Toninato (right) was whistled down when Grand Rapids goalie Dom DeGuiseppi left his stick behind to dive for it.

That would put East in position to duplicate its 4-3 overtime victory over Eden Prairie earlier in the season at Heritage Center. It would take a heroic effort by all the Greyhounds, and even then we’d have to see if East’s big line could outscore Eagle standout Kyle Rau, who should win Mr. Hockey.

It is a good sign of parity and strength that nobody can make it undefeated any more. There aren’t even any teams with one or two losses. Blaine, in fact, has the fewest losses, at 20-4-4, with East, White Bear Lake, and Eden Prairie next with five losses. There are a lot of winners in both fields, and they’re in the midst of spending a weekend they’re remember all their lives.

Comments

• 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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• Exhaust Notes:

  PADDLING
  More and more cars are offering steering-wheel paddles to allow drivers manual control over automatic or CVT transmissions. A good idea might be to standardize them. Most allow upshifting by pulling on the right-side paddle and downshifting with the left. But a recent road-test of the new Porsche Panamera, the paddles for the slick PDK direct-sequential gearbox were counter-intuitive -- both the right or left thumb paddles could upshift or downshift, but pushing on either one would upshift, and pulling back on either paddle downshifted. I enjoy using paddles, but I spent the full week trying not to downshift when I wanted to upshift. A little simple standardization would alleviate the problem.
  
  

  SPEAKING OF PADDLES
  The Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution has the best paddle system, and Infiniti has made the best mainstream copy of that system for the new Q50, and other sporty models. And why not? It's simply the best. In both, the paddles are long, slender magnesium strips, affixed to the steering column rather than the steering wheel. Pull on the right paddle and upshift, pull on the left and downshift. The beauty is that while needing to upshift in a tight curve might cause a driver to lose the steering wheel paddle for an instant, but having the paddles long, and fixed, means no matter how hard the steering wheel is cranked, reaching anywhere on the right puts the upshift paddle on your fingertips.
  
  

  TIRES MAKE CONTACT
  Even in snow-country, a few stubborn old-school drivers want to stick with rear-wheel drive, but the vast majority realize the clear superiority of front-wheel drive. Going to all-wheel drive, naturally, is the all-out best. But the majority of drivers facing icy roadways complain about traction for going, stopping and steering with all configurations. They overlook the simple but total influence of having the right tires can make. There are several companies that make good all-season or snow tires, but there are precious few that are exceptional. The Bridgestone Blizzak continues to be the best=known and most popular, but in places like Duluth, MN., where scaling 10-12 blocks of 20-30 degree hills is a daily challenge, my favorite is the Nokian WR. Made without compromising tread compound, the Nokians maintain their flexibility no matter how cold it gets, so they stick, even on icy streets, and can turn a skittish car into a winter-beater.