One final has a familiar ring to it, the other has some new blood. Here's a preview of Saturday's state girls hockey tournament championship games.
The Class A championship at 4 PM is a rematch of last year's game as St. Paul United takes on the Blake Bears. It will be the third meeting between the two Independent Metro Athletic Conference teams with Blake victorious in both games. They recorded a 3-0 shut out on January 3 and two weeks later on the 17th, they beat the combined team from St. Paul Academy and Visitation 4-1.
St. Paul United opened up the Class A tournament on Wednesday with a 10-0 rout of the Mankato East/Loyola Cougars. Joie Phelps got the hat trick and Maggie Conners added two goals for SPU, who led 9-0 after two periods. Conners would also get a hat trick in the semifinal game that resulted in a 4-2 win over the Warroad Warriors.
As for the defending Class A champion Blake Bears, they began their quest for a seventh state title with a 3-0 quarterfinal win over the Alexandria Cardinals. Madeline Wethington, Sara McClanahan and Lucy Burton scored for the Bears. Lucy Burton will play next season at Yale. Lucy and her sister Addie also tallied for the Bears in the semifinal game as they beat the Northfield Raiders 4-1. Madeline Wethington and Lily Delianedis also scored for Blake. Can the Bears win their third straight game against SPU and bring back championship trophy number seven?
There's no need to complain this year if you're tired of seeing the same teams in the Class AA final over and over again because there are two teams looking for their first state championship, the Blaine Bengals and the Edina Hornets. The Bengals are playing in their first championship game since 2001 when they lost to the Bloomington Jefferson Jaguars. Head coach Steve Guider was an assistant on that team and Marci Bydlon was the head coach. In the quarterfinal game against the Roseau Rams, Gabby Rosenthal and Paige Beebe scored two goals apiece to lead the Bengals to a 7-1 win. They would face the Hill-Murray Pioneers in the semifinals got a balanced scoring attack that had eight players pick up at least one point to beat the Pioneers 5-1.
The Edina Hornets have had an outstanding season under first year head coach Sami Reber and it would continue in the state tournament that started with a 4-1 win over the Farmington Tigers. The Hornets got off to a slow start against a hot Tiger goalie in Abby Bollig but they would dominate the game thereafter and out shoot Farmington 53-16. The semifinals would be the third mmeting this season with their Lake Conference rivals the defending Class AA champion Eden Prairie Eagles. Edina won both regular season games by one goal margins, 1-0 on January 3 and 2-1 on January 21. The third meeting wasn't even close as they recorded their 12th shut out this season 4-0. Lolita Fidler, Sophie Slattery, Emily Oden and Anna Klein scored for the Hornets and Anna Goldstein picked up the shut out in the net as the Hornets dominated once again in the shots on goal department 48-14. In two state tournament games, the Hornets have out shot the opposition 101-30. Blaine goalie Jaela O'Brien is likely to have a busy night as she goes against top ranked Edina and their onslaught of shots. The last time Edina played for a state title was 2011, when they lost to another Lake Conference team, the Minnetonka Skippers.
Get ready for an outstanding Saturday of Minnesota girls high school hockey in St. Paul. Who will come away with their first Class AA championship trophy.
No comments:
Post a Comment