No. 2 Breck vs. Proctor/Hermantown

Breck’s Olivia Mobley (Tim Kolehmainen / Breakdown Sports USA)

The Breck Mustangs galloped their way to a 6-0 win over the Proctor/Hermantown Mirage on Friday to advance to  Saturday’s Class A Championship Game.

Breck’s depth was too much for the Mirage to handle, as eight different players appeared on the score sheet for the Mustangs.

“Yeah it was nice to see the theme continue,” Breck coach Rhonda Engelhardt said. “I think it helps when we have each line as a threat. We can just keep rolling everybody and everybody can stay fresh and work hard. We started to getting our stride, it was multiple people scoring, we don’t have to rely on one person to help us get those points.”

Breck got off to a fast start. Within the game’s first eight minutes, they fired 10 shots on net – while also not allowing a shot on goal. Eventually their hard work paid off as freshman Emily Zumwinkle netted the game’s first goal, with assists going to Gabby Billing and Olivia Mobley. By the end of the first period, Breck had outshot Proctor/Hermantown 17-1.

After being heavily outplayed in the first period, the Mirage looked like they started to figure things out. They drew a power play 12-seconds into the second period and fired plenty of pucks on net but weren’t able to score. They ended up taking a penalty and the Mustangs capitalized with sophomore Ashley Halverson netting a power-play goal to make it 2-0. Shortly after Halverson’s goal, she fed Zumwinkle to the front of the net and the freshman had her second goal of the game as Breck took a three-goal lead.

“I couldn’t have done those goals without my teammates,” Zumwinkle said following her performance. “They made awesome passes on all of them. It’s an awesome feeling being at the state tournament because it’s our first time in six years and I think we all just worked really hard to get here and it’s an exciting moment.”

As the period winded down, the Mustangs added another to their tally when eighth grader Shae Messner crashed the net and Breck lit the lamp for the fourth time.

They would add two more goals in the final period of regulation, with Mobley and Luci McGlynn finishing the scoring for the Mustangs.

Although Hermantown fell short of their goal of a state championship, senior Kennedy Halverson is extremely proud of her team’s effort.

“Well it was kind of like a dream come true,” Halverson said. “A lot of people underestimated us and didn’t think we’d make it to this point. And I don’t think we played a bad hockey game today, I just don’t think we played our regular game. We worked hard and I’m incredibly proud of our team no matter the outcome.”

No. 1 Warroad vs. Alexandria

Warroad’s Genevieve Hendrickson (Tim Kolehmainen / Breakdown Sports USA)

The Warroad Warriors are no strangers to the state tournament.

It’s their ninth appearance in the tourney since 2006 and they’ll have a chance to claim their third Class A championship in this decade – but their first since 2011 – after their 7-1 win over the Alexandria Cardinals.

“This group hasn’t played in one,” Warroad coach David Marvin said. “So it’ll be fun and it’s exciting for them; they’ve worked really hard. We know what it’s like to lose the semi-final game the last couple years. The early games on Saturday’s not much fun. Sometimes you got to fail before you succeed, I guess.”

Warroad entered play having recorded shutout in six of their last seven games. Yet that didn’t matter for Alexandria, as they got on the board first when freshman Anna Doherty found the back of the net, with assists going to McKenna Ellingson and Allison O’Kane. But their lead wouldn’t last long as Hannah Corneliusen tied things up for the Warriors. It was Corneliusen’s 39th goal of the season.

It looked like a troublesome situation for Alexandria in the early stages of the second period as they drew two penalties for, too many players and hooking which gave the Warriors a 5-on-3 advantage for two minutes. However, Cardinals netminder Hailee Bailey stood tall making a barrage of saves and the team was able to kill off the penalty.

Shortly after they returned to even strength, freshman Genevieve Hendrickson streaked in a on a breakaway and beat Bailey giving Warroad a 2-1 lead. In the closing minutes of the second frame, the Warriors were able to convert on the power play when defenseman Kaitlyn Kotlowski ripped a shot from the top of the point and Warroad had led 3-1

In the final minute of the period, the Warriors drew another penalty with Corneliusen scoring seven-seconds into the man-advantage for her second goal of the game and the team skated into the second intermission up 4-1.

Despite the time off between periods, Warroad didn’t skip a beat in the third with Hendrickson, Tiffani Foster and Kotlowski netting goals in a five-minute span and securing the win.

Losing to powerhouse like Warroad can sometimes humble a losing team, but Alexandria head coach Molly Arola wasn’t pleased one bit with her team’s play.

“It was just having some issues between our ears tonight and in our heart,” Arola said. “And we weren’t able to bring our “A game” physically or mentally.”

Despite the Warriors nearly averaging six goals per game, Marvin envisions the title game being a more sound hockey game.

“Well I would bet it’d be lower scoring,” predicted Marvin. “Because they got a good goaltender – and actually they got two; I’m not sure who will play for them – and we have a good goaltender. It was lower scoring when we played them earlier in the year which seems like a long time ago now. I think it should be fun, it will be a hard-fought contest.”

With Warroad’s win they’ll meet Breck for the Class A State Championship on Saturday at 4 p.m.

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St. Paul – Carly Bullock went down to the ice and looked to be in pain about seven minutes into the first period. Not a good sign for Blake’s leading scorer.

Right off a faceoff, she caught a stick to the throat.

“The heel of her stick caught me right here,” Bullock said, pointing to her throat. “So I’m a little hoarse. I just couldn’t breathe.”

But she wasn’t down for the count. Bullock returned later in the first period and ended up with a hat trick, giving top-seeded Blake (25-2-2) a 5-1 Class 1A semifinal victory over No. 4 seed Proctor/Hermantown (20-8-1) Friday afternoon at Xcel Energy Center.

The Ms. Hockey finalist has seven goals in the tournament, giving her 59 for the season.

After the game, a hoarse-voiced Bullock talked about using her injury to her advantage.

“It was great,” Bullock said. “Just using the anger of getting hurt, using it in a good way.”

The line combos were shuffled a bit with Bullock out, but coach Shawn Reid wasn’t worried about his star player.

“I will never, ever bet against Carly Bullock,” he said. “I don’t think she’s ever been hurt in her career.”

Don’t be fooled though: Bullock isn’t carrying the team by herself. Seven different Bears have scored in the state tournament.

Blake got on the board first Friday, just 2:12 into the game. Sarah Chute got her stick on a Madeline Wethington shot through traffic from out near the blue line for a power-play goal. It was Chute’s second goal of the tournament, matching her season goal total before state.

Proctor/Hermantown held Blake to that 1-0 lead for the rest of the period and was only outshot 9-3 during that time. Blake had to kill off a couple penalties, including 43 seconds of a 5-on-3 situation.

The second period started with a quick goal as well, this time coming from the Mirage as senior forward Sophie McGovern tied it at 1 after a power play for her team had just expired.

“Definitely that goal kind of got our bench up,” McGovern said.

Any momentum seemed to be erased a couple minutes later as Bullock pumped in her first goal of the game, on a backhanded move off a breakaway.

“You can’t make very many mistakes,”  said Mirage coach Glen Gilderman. “If you make mistakes, they capitalize on them.”

Blake freshman Izzy Daniel brought the lead to two later in the period when she buried a pass in the slot. Bullock gave the Bears a lead extension on the power play with 45.8 seconds left in the second period to make it 4-1.

“I think we calmed down a little bit,” Reid said. “They were just all over us in the first period.”

Bullock sealed the deal only 29 seconds into the third period with a powerful shot from in between the circles to give her the hat trick and her team a comfortable 5-1 lead.

The teams also faced each other Dec. 4, a 1-0 victory for Blake. Proctor/Hermantown used that as motivation.

“We knew that we could play with them,” Gilderman said. “We carried some confidence in knowing that it can be done.”

But Blake outshot the Mirage 13-4 in the third period and 33-13 for the game. The Bears also went 2-for-4 on the power play and have now outshot opponents 93-15 in the tournament.

The Bears are in the hunt for their state-best sixth state title and third in the past four years. They will face No. 3 seed St. Paul United in the Class 1A championship game at 4 p.m. Saturday at Xcel Energy Center.

Proctor/Hermantown will face Warroad for third place at 9 a.m.

“We’re still going to the third-place game, and that’s amazing,” McGovern said.

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SAINT PAUL—Cinderella hasn’t found her slipper yet, but she’s one step closer. St. Paul United, the only team to advance to the state tournament without playing in a section final, moved on to the Class A state semifinals with a 5-2 victory over Proctor/Hermantown.

With SPU clinging to a 3-2 lead late in the final period, defenseman Kate Hallett, a Harvard University commit, fired a shot from the right point which hit traffic in front and eluded Mirage goaltender Kylie Hommerding at 13:53. Joie Phelps’ second of the game, an empty-net goal with 3:24 to play, sealed the win and earned St. Paul United a date with East Grand Forks at 1:00 p.m. on Friday with a trip to the state championship game on the line.

The Green Wave defeated Litchfield/Dassel-Cokato 8-1 earlier in the evening.

St. Paul United, a cooperative team between Visitation, St. Paul Academy and Summit School, made its state tournament debut less than a week after Achiever Academy withdrew from the Section 4A title game following allegations of its roster containing ineligible players.

“It’s great to get on the ice,” St. Paul United coach David Cole said of his team’s eight-day layoff from game action. “To be off a little bit of time was not a bad thing necessarily for us. We’ve been a bit banged up, and we were healthy again tonight. Everybody was back in the lineup and we needed everybody because that was a heck of a hockey game and the Mirage gave us everything we could handle.”

Despite efforts by fellow section members to have the tournament re-seeded and repeated, SPU found itself under the bright lights of Xcel Energy Center facing the Mirage on Wednesday in the last quarterfinal of the day. The experience left the nickname-free team feeling as if it had something to prove, and prove something it did.

“Regardless of how we got here, I knew we were going to get here,” Hallet said. “We’re just going to continue to prove ourselves because we truly, truly deserve to be here and I believe that with my whole heart.”

After Lauren Boettcher got SPU on the board in the first, Lea Groebe scored at 10:34 of the second to put SPU in front 2-0 past the midway point of the game. Just 2:17 later, however, Proctor/Hermantown’s Sophie McGovern briefly closed the gap to one before Phelps restored the two-goal cushion at the 15:20 mark.

Cole said he could sense his team was a bit tentative to begin the game with nerves, understandably, getting the better of his players considering the environment.

“Once we started to skate and pressure them and use our forecheck, I think the tide started to turn,” Cole said. “Then we just stayed on the gas.”

The Mirage made it interesting on Mikayla Kero’s tally just 4:51 of the third to make it 3-2 but it would be the only one of 13 shots Proctor/Hermantown fired at SPU goalie Catherine Johnson in the game’s final 17 minutes. Johnson finished with 24 saves overall.

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