At the Class A Banquet on Tuesday night, Mahtomedi head coach Jeff Poeschl said, “There is a danger in facing any team at the state tournament.” It was almost as if he was looking into a crystal ball to set the stage for Wednesday’s Class A quarterfinals of the 2017 MSHSL Boys Hockey Tournament.
On a day that is typically lacking drama of any kind, Wednesday became one for the ages (maybe even the best in the history of Class A) as both seeded teams lost in the afternoon session and the top seed needed overtime to move on to the semifinals on Friday.
The Moose of Monticello/Annandale/Maple Lake, a first-time Tourney participant, opened the festivities versus No. 2 seed Delano and managed to hold on to a 3-2 win thanks to three second-period goals. Delano, another first-time participant, certainly had the upper hand throughout the game, but it never felt like the Tigers truly got going. Despite Delano not fully getting going, they still got plenty of chances and it took a stellar performance from MAML goaltender Tyler Klatt to give the Moose the big W.
Perhaps a lucky cat shirt had something to do with the day’s first upset.
In the afternoon’s second game it was Northfield, a third first-timer of the day, taking on No. 3 seed Mahtomedi, who is certainly no stranger to the Tourney’s proceedings.
After getting some interesting reviews for their bleached hair approach, the Zephyrs had control of the game early on as they carried a 1-0 lead into the midway point of the hockey game. But the Tigers struck shortly after the halfway mark to even the score at one, and carried that into the intermission thanks to some big saves from goaltender Ryan Bielenberg.
Right off the hop in the third, Nicholas Kvernmo scored to give Northfield the lead, and that was all Bielenberg needed to lock down the win. Kvernmo added an empty-netter with 1:08 to play to send the second unseeded team to Friday’s semifinals, a first in the history of Class A. Kvernmo said of his two goals: “You dream about this as a kid. Playing and scoring in the state tournament.”
“You dream about this as a kid. Playing and scoring in the state tournament.”
There was a two-hour break between the afternoon and evening session. There certainly was not much of an expectation for the first game — which is usually dominated by the top seed every year — and there was hope the final game of the night would provide more drama.
The puck dropped on said evening session at 6:15 PM, and drama proved abundant for a majority of the night.
Hermantown, Class A’s top seed, came into the game with lofty expectations as the defending state champion. After a heavily-dominated first period that produced no goals, Bruce Plante’s squad was able to get a pair of goals in the second that looked like it was going to finally put the Cardinals away.
Luverne had different plans.
Tyler Reisdorfer scored 52 seconds after Hermantown scored their second goal, bringing Luverne back to within a goal. Despite several big chances for the Hawks to score, the score held at 2-1, and there was a general feeling throughout the arena that Luverne just might pull even if Hermantown couldn’t bury one of their golden chances.
The Hawks could not bury any of their great chances, some of which was self-inflicted and the other was thanks to Kaden Ericson standing tall in his net. After all that, it was still 2-1, and sure enough, Reisdorfer scored the equalizer with 2:08 to play in the third.
Not one, but two upsets had already been registered on the day, and both were relatively big in the short history of Class A. But Luverne pulling even with mighty Hermantown, the team that some feel should move up to Class AA, had everyone wondering about the biggest upset of them all. Could the Cardinals take down the Hawks? In hockey, anything goes in that sudden-death extra session.
It only took 42 seconds of overtime for Hermantown to bust out of their slumber, as Dylan Kolquist buried the winner past a sprawling Ericson to send the Hawks into Friday’s semifinals. Despite the loss, Luverne head coach Phillip Paquette praised his team’s effort by saying, “There’s no way I could ask for anything more from our team, top to bottom.”
Well said, coach; everyone watching that game would whole-heartedly agree with you.
In the day’s final game, No. 5 St. Cloud Cathedral dispatched No. 4 East Grand Forks 6-3 in a game that remained relatively close throughout until the Crusaders scored twice in the third to put it out of reach.
At day’s end, this had been the most compelling Wednesday of hockey Class A had ever seen. The blowouts that the masses were accustomed to were gone, and were replaced with four thoroughly compelling hockey games. It had usually only been the big schools (Class AA) that only provided drama on their day one, but this year the small schools caught up to them and said: “Your move.”
On Thursday, we’ll see what Class AA can do to match, but it will not be an easy task. If they can match, then oh boy will this be a tournament for the ages.
