Adams comes through again as Grand Rapids nips Bemidji in OT

St. Paul — If there’s one thing Bemidji and Grand Rapids learned from their Class 2A Boys’ State Hockey Tournament quarterfinal clash on Thursday night it’s that timing is everything.

And Thunderhawks assistant captain Alex Adams’ timing has been spot on over the last seven days.

A week to the day after scoring a dramatic game winner in the final seconds of Grand Rapids’ Section 7AA final comeback win over Duluth East, Adams scored the winning goal 2:06 into overtime to give the fourth seeded Thunderhawks a 3-2 win over No. 5 seed Bemidji at Xcel Energy Center.

Adams admitted he’s been living a dream the last week.

“It’s been a couple of really big goals, probably the biggest of my career,” Adams said. “It’s been a really fun week.”

Bemidji forward Alex Pollack’s goal 16 seconds into the third period created the tie which led to overtime  but first-year Grand Rapids coach Trent Klatt said there was no panic on the Thunderhawks bench.

“We’ve been in situations like that,” Klatt said. “We were down two goals to Duluth East a week ago and we’ve got Alex Adams on our team so we’re fine.”

But as much as Adams was enjoying the moment he knows it wasn’t all his doing.

“The last couple games I’ve gotten pretty lucky with coming up with the big goal,” Adams said. “But at the end of the day it’s all a team effort to get down to that goal anyway.”

A berth in the state semifinals nearly turned on a less-than-17-second stretch bridged by the second intermission. The Lumberjacks (23-3-2) took advantage of the opportunity but it wasn’t enough to squeak by the Thunderhawks (22-6-1) who advanced to a Friday night meeting with top seed Eden Prairie.

With Grand Rapids leading 2-1 in the waning seconds of the second period, Thunderhawks junior forward Micah Miller corralled the puck in the neutral zone, fought through a check along the left wing boards and cut hard to the net.

“I was screaming at him when he went by the bench,” Klatt said with a grin. “I told him he had four seconds. That was plenty of time for him to get to the net.”

“Micah’s got speed that not many guys in high school hockey have ever had,” Klatt added. “Anytime he decides to go, he can beat anybody at any time.”

Miller’s shot shot went in as the horn sounded to end the period to give Grand Rapids what appeared to be a 3-1 lead right in front of the Thunderhawks’ student section.

“I just knew there wasn’t a lot of time left and I just tried to go wide and get to the net,” Miller said. “I thought it went in before the horn but I guess it didn’t.”

Although the nearest official signaled it a good goal, the so-called lead was short lived as video replay definitively showed time had expired before the puck crossed the goal line.

Seconds later, of game time, Pollack’s goal turned what had briefly appeared to be a two-goal lead into a tie game.

Bemidji coach Wade Chiodo said the bullet-dodging sequence did not even come up during the intermission.

“We didn’t even talk about the goal getting waved off, to be honest,” Chiodo said. “We just went in there and talked about ourselves and what we needed to do as a team and this team has handled adversity very well this season.”

It’s a trait Klatt says his team shares.

“It’s a testament to the guys in our room,” Klatt said. “They never quit, they never give up, and they compete right to the end and that’s what we, as coaches, ask of them.”

That the game ended the way it did came as no surprise to either coach as the two northern powerhouses met in a Nov. 24 game at Grand Rapids which ended in a 1-1 tie.

“We knew what they had, they’re pretty powerful up front,” Chiodo said. “We knew that we had to clog it up and make them go 200 feet and take advantage of any opportunities we had. We did that some of the game but not all the game and that was the difference.”

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Lumberjack state legacy continues 29 years later

Current members of the Bemidji Lumberjacks had not known the first-hand experience of their hometown team going to the state boys hockey tournament until now.

Moreover, no one in Bemidji born after 1986 has witnessed the excitement of their Lumberjacks competing in Minnesota high school hockey’s biggest stage. They could only go by the stories of those who played or followed the Lumberjacks teams in the mid 1980s and before when the program last appeared at state.

Fittingly, three members of the state entrant Bemidji team this season grew up hearing of those stories from their fathers who played on Lumberjack state squads in the 1980s or 1970s. Jack Johnson, Michael Forseth, Chase Hartje and his brother, Cole, helped the Lumberjacks end a 29-year state tournament drought.

“We haven’t even seen a team come down here from Bemidji, so it’s kind of a first,” Forseth said. “We’re excited and just happy to be here.”

Against No. 2 seed Edina on Thursday in the Class 2A state tournament, Bemidji looked more like a team out for a colossal upset than content just to be at the Xcel Energy Center. A goal by Johnson and then Josh Lusby in less than two minutes apart toward the end of the third period had the Lumberjacks within a goal of the two-time defending champs.

Only an empty-netter in the final seconds by Edina seemed to keep its title hopes off the chopping blocks. Nonetheless, the Lumberjacks wowed the full house at the X and a community that had not seen its team in state hockey in almost three decades.

“People are going to be excited, and they should be because we have good hockey team,” Lumberjacks coach Wade Chiodo said.

Support has flooded in for the team since beating Moorhead 2-0 on Feb. 25 for the Section 8AA championship in Thief River Falls, where Chiodo grew up. Chiodo has coached the Lumberjacks to the section finals twice now in his seven years at the helm.

Last time came in 2011 when they fell 2-0 to Moorhead in TRF. Either the Spuds or Roseau had won Section 8AA and gone to state for 19-straight years until the Lumberjacks won the 8AA crown last month.

Winning gave cause for the Bemidji community to celebrate like it hadn’t in 29 years.

“Everybody’s supporting us,” Forseth said. “The whole week, the town’s just been buzzing, so it’s been really awesome to see all of our fans follow us down here.”

Messages of support rolled in throughout the week – even from members of past state teams from a while ago. Chiodo received a message from former goalie Steve Peters, who net-minded for the Lumberjacks on a state tournament team in the 1980s.

Bemidji fans purchased 1,000 tickets at school prior to the tournament. It looked and sounded like more than that on Thursday at the X.

“Yeah, at the end there when the crowd erupted it was pretty loud,” Forseth said. “That was cool.”

Forseth’s father also experienced playing in front of a state tournament crowd in 1976 with the Lumberjaks. Johnson’s father did too in 1985 when Bemidji again made state. The Hartje brothers’ father also did in the former last Lumberjack state trip in 1986.

Current Bemidji players Jake and Nick Leitner also have ties to the last time a Lumberjack team played in state since their mother attended the school at the time. Jake led the team offensively with 47 points going into state.

He had a goal against the Hornets and pulled his team within a point at 3-2 in the second period. Bemidji had been down 3-0 through the first period.

“It took us the first period to get them [the nerves] out,” Forseth said. “We started off a little slow [and] a little shaky, but once we got them out, we started coming back in the game.”

After all, the Lumberjacks were playing for a community that hadn’t seen this in 29 years.

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Masterman scores twice as Edina withstands Bemidji rally

St. Paul — Making their first state appearance since 1986, the Bemidji Lumberjacks didn’t have time to ease back into the state atmosphere. The two-time defending state champion Edina Hornets jumped out to an early 3-0 lead, but once the Lumberjacks were acclimated, Edina barely snuck away with the victory.

The Hornets survived a two-goal surge by Bemidji to defeat the Lumberjacks 6-4 in the Class 2A boys’ state hockey quarterfinals on Thursday at the Xcel Energy Center. Edina will face the winner of the matchup between the No. 3 seed St. Thomas Academy Cadets and the random draw Duluth East Greyhounds.

Hornets’ coach Curt Giles sees Edina’s ability to finish off the Lumberjacks lucky considering the type of game it was in the end.

“A game like this, you push, they push back, and then you push back again,” Giles said. “It went back and forth a couple times and fortunately for us, we came out on top.”

The Lumberjacks displayed a nervous energy to start the game and Edina took advantage. Bemidji netminder Grant Tharaldson appeared to lack confidence in the opening minutes of the state quarterfinal and Edina forward Matt Masterman made sure to make the most of the opportunity.

Masterman’s score along with goals from Garrett Wait and Parker Mismash, gave the Hornets a 3-0 lead halfway through the period, a lead they took with them into the locker room.

“They were a little shaky in the beginning,” Masterman said of the Lumberjacks. “It was nice to get the offense going early.”

But even with the early lead, the Lumberjacks weren’t about to call it a game after the first. As the Hornets sat with comfortably up 3-0, Bemidji made the Hornets uncomfortable.

Quickly.

16 seconds into the second period, junior forward Rocky Copiskey buried the puck in the Edina net and 27 seconds later, Copiskey passed the puck to teammate Nick Leitner who scored once again on Edina goaltender Kobi Boe.

Despite the team’s lack of state tournament experience facing hockey giant Edina, Bemidji coach Wade Chiodo didn’t let his team panic, down 3-0.

“We just stayed the course,” Chiodo said. “We talk about it all the time: what’s our game? What are we going to do? What our M.O.? What’s our identity? Those are things we talk about non-stop.”

Hanging on to a 3-2 lead, the Hornets also stayed the course. After they settled themselves, the Curt Giles led team got right back to where they started early in the game. Even with the second-period surge from the Lumberjacks, Edina extended its lead to 5-2 with goals from Bram Scheerer and Masterman.

Yet, as the Hornets appeared to be headed on their way to the state semifinals, the Lumberjacks weren’t about to hand over the victory. Two goals in the final minute from Jack Johnson and Josh Lusby narrowed the gap to 5-4, but an empty-netter from Edina’s Casey Dornbach ended Bemidji’s state semifinal hopes.

Giles keeps the game in perspective whenever his team allows another team back in.

“Sometimes you forget these are 16 and 17 year old kids, not pros or college players,” Giles said. “The tendency is that when you are up by a couple goals you just kind of get through this process and just glide through this thing.

A state semifinal berth didn’t come as easy for the Hornets as it has in years past, and Giles attributes this to Bemidji’s fight till the final whistle.

“I give Bemidji credit,” Giles said. “The easy thing [for them] to do was say, ‘hey we’ve had a nice tournament. We played the 11 o’clock game 5-2, and let’s take our work home.’ They played hard right to the very end.”

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