His message to his team was the same in 2015 as it was this past Saturday when the Green Wave’s 1-0 lead turned into a tie game in the final minute of regulation.

“I told them, ‘if we would’ve said at the first meeting of the season that you are headed to overtime with an opportunity to win a championship, would you take it? … You would’ve,’” Palmiscno said.

Like 2015, the 2025 East Grand Forks team won the state championship in overtime, beating St. Cloud Cathedral, 2-1.

The overtime hero – “East Grand Forks hero for life,” as Palmiscno put it – was senior forward Jace Van Eps, scoring 1 minutes, 46 seconds into overtime to upset the No. 2-seed and defending champion Crusaders. East Grand Forks (16-13-2) is the first 4-seed to win the Class 1A state title since Mahtomedi in 2020.

Sophomore forward Jace Panzer took the initial shot from near the blue line on the winning play, and Van Eps raced into the corner after the puck kicked out wide.

“Just try to beat the guy to the puck, and then saw out of the corner of my eye, the goalie was a little out of position,” Van Eps said. “Thought I could kind of just bank it off his leg there and see what happens. It was a win in our favor, for sure.”

Van Eps took a sharp-angle shot from behind the goal line in the corner. It seemed to fulfill the old hockey cliché: Put pucks on net, good things happen.

St. Cloud Cathedral’s Mason Layne (5) in front of the net while the puck gets past goaltender Keaton LeGrande in overtime. (MHM Photo / Rick Olson)

“I don’t really talk to these kids about throwing it on net from the corner of the rink, Jace,” Palmiscno said, in a bit in jest at the postgame press conference before turning serious. “Just get pucks on net. Panz did a really good job. Shoots it low on net from the corner of the O zone.”

The goal secured the first state championship for the Green Wave since it won back-to-back titles in 2014-15. East Grand Forks also avenged an 11-5 loss to Cathedral on Jan. 31.

The championship-winning goal was the 14th of the season for Van Eps, but he saved up most of his scoring for the postseason, scoring six goals in six games across the section and state tournaments.

For Van Eps, he said he “wasn’t too happy” with himself throughout the regular season. He also knew the gravity of the season possibly coming down to one play ending a high school career in earlier postseason games.

“Obviously, this is how we want to end it,” Van Eps said. “I think us seniors really started to realize that, just like coach said. Couldn’t be happier now.”

Tough schedule prepared EGF for the state tournament moment
Two of the past three Class 1A championship games have been decided in overtime. Mahtomedi defeated Warroad 6-5 in double overtime in 2023. East Grand Forks was battle-tested in overtime this season, too. Including Saturday’s victory, the Green Wave finish the season with a 4-2-2 overtime record. They also won their Section 8 championship in overtime, upsetting Warroad, ranked No. 1 in the season’s final Let’s Play Hockey rankings.

East Grand Forks senior Cooper Hills (15) skates by the bench to get congratulations after his second-period goal made it a 1-0 game.(MHM Photo / Rick Olson)

The Green Wave were a sub-.500 team at points during the season, starting 0-3 and then 2-5-1 in their first seven games of the season. They had another stretch from mid-to-late January when they went just 1-6. East Grand Forks faced strong competition throughout the season, facing teams like Orono, Mahtomedi and Warroad, plus Class 2A foes St. Thomas Academy, Class 2A champion Moorhead and Wayzata, which ended up as three losses during the January stretch.

“Our schedule was difficult,” Palmiscno said. “Our No. 1 goal every day is just to be the most competitive team in the state of Minnesota.

“That doesn’t mean we’re the most skilled. That doesn’t mean we’re the fastest. But we’re going to be the best version of ourselves, and we’re going to work to beat our opponent, bar none.”

The playoffs were a different beast for the Green Wave as a 10-13-2 team. A section title needed three victories, and then three more wins for a state title. They rolled to a perfect 6-0 to finish the season. Their previous season-long winning streak this season was four games in December and early January.

At the state tournament, East Grand Forks shut out Northern Lakes 3-0 in the quarterfinals. Then it pulled off an epic comeback in the semifinal, knocking off top-seed Hibbing/Chisholm 7-5. The Green Wave was down 5-2 in that game before scoring four goals in a 2:45 span on the game clock at the end of the second period and start of the third period.

St. Cloud Cathedral John Hirschfeld (6) celebrates Bo Schmidt’s (17) game-tying goal late in regulation. (MHM Photo / Rick Olson)

They finished off with another upset of St. Cloud Cathedral (20-9-2), also looking for its third overall championship. Cooper Hills gave East Grand Forks a 1-0 lead at 7:16 of the second period.

They held onto that until the final minute of regulation when Cathedral freshman Bo Schmidt tied the game with his third goal of the tournament. Cathedral outshot the Green Wave 38-31 in the game, with sophomore Noah Schindele tying his season-high mark with 37 saves.

“That was awesome to see them push through a little adversity and tie it up at the end,” said Cathedral coach Robbie Stocker. “Ultimately not enough in the end but great resilience by our group to fight back.”

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Crusaders players cherished the Paw Patrol character Rubble plush dog for their “Dawg of the Game” award so much that senior goalie Nick Hansen brought it to the Class 1A state tournament championship postgame press conference. The dog and the state championship trophy adorned the Crusaders’ table as they talked about their 3-1 win over the Hermantown Hawks in the Class 1A boys’ state hockey title game on March 9.

“I think the whole team was dawgs today,” Hansen said.

Otherwise, the award “scattered” throughout the team, as Stocker said.

Cathedral goaltender Nick Hansen made 28 saves in the Class 1A championship game. (MHM Photo / Rick Olson)

St. Cloud Cathedral needed a full team effort against the Hawks, the last team to beat the Crusaders this season. It started with Andrew Dwinnell scoring at 3:48 of the game, assisted by John Hirschfeld and Joey Gillespie.

The Crusaders survived a defensive battle in the second period, which spilled into the first half of the third period before Dwinnell turned a behind-the-back pass into a goal for a 2-0 lead. Dwinnell said that they practiced that one.

“It’s a play we always work on in practice,” Dwinnell said. “We do lots of zone entry drills, and my linemates are usually the first ones on the puck and the first ones in the zone, so I feel like I’m trailing play a lot.”

Gillespie extended the lead, putting the Crusaders up 3-0 at the 12:18 mark of the third period. It marked the 10th straight game with three or more goals for the Crusaders and the 14th in the final 15 games of the season.

“They’re sneaky good. They don’t really overpower you, it’s just all of a sudden they have a three-on-two or a two-on-one from inside the dots,” said Hermantown coach Patrick Andrews.

Hermantown tried to chip away with an empty net late in the game, but the Hawks couldn’t muster more than a goal, which came from Alexander Francisco. That’s despite the fact that the Hawks outshot the Crusaders 29-21.

“Obviously, they have a good goalie and against any good goalie, you have to get to the paint,” Hawks forward William Esterbrooks said. “They kept us outside pretty much the whole game.

“We weren’t able to get inside in front of his eyes very well. We did end up scoring one, and it was in the paint. I would have liked to have done that a little more.”

Andrew Dwinnell fires a puck over Hermantown goaltender Dane Callaway. Dwinnell scored twice in the title game. (MHM Photo / Rick Olson)

Hansen simply dominated in goal with 28 saves and a .966 save percentage. He didn’t play in the previous meeting against Hermantown due to a shoulder injury, a time he called the most challenging in his young hockey career.

“It’s the longest break I took from being on the ice, probably since I started playing 10-12 years ago now,” Hansen said. “So it was really hard for me, but the guys around me made sure to keep my confidence up and get ready to go back in.”

That first Hermantown game back on Jan. 11 marked the turning point of the season. The Hawks beat the Crusaders 3-1 on that date, snapped a three-game winning streak for the Crusaders at the time. Hansen returned to goal after that loss, and the Crusaders never lost again.

“That set the tone, when he came back, what this group was going to be,” Stocker said. “I can’t speak highly enough of him as a leader on what he was able to do for this group.”

Cathedral bounced back quickly with a 13-1 rout of Mankato East followed by a 9-1 blowout of Princeton and a 7-1 win over Little Falls. The Crusaders kept winning and capped a Section 5 title run with a 4-1 win over Monticello.

A 5-1 win over Northfield to open the state tournament on March 6 had the Crusaders looking all the more confident, but No. 2-seed Warroad gave the No. 3-seed Crusaders everything they could handle in the state semifinals. Cathedral squeaked out a 4-3 overtime win over the Warriors to advance to the title game. Warroad took third place at the state tournament; Orono won the consolation bracket.

Top-seeded Hermantown had a similar path to the final with a 6-0 blowout of Alexandria followed by a 7-6 overtime win over defending champion Mahtomedi. Andrews acknowledged that it impacted his team for the championship game.

Vince Gebhardt and goaltender Nick Hansen embrace as the Crusaders celebrate their state championship. (MHM Photo / Rick Olson)

“I thought we got better and better as the game went on,” Andrews said. “We started to outshoot them. I really liked our second period, and the third period was fine. Yeah, they got those two goals, and it was kind of weird because I felt like we had the better go of it, honestly.”

In the end, the Crusaders won the Class 1A title for the second time since 2019.

“I think that it’s really good for our area,” Hansen said. “I know that sometimes we can struggle getting numbers out for the team, and to be able to attract more players to play hockey because of what we’re able to do right now, and being able to have more options makes better hockey teams, and better hockey teams win championships.”

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