For 72 seconds early in the second period, Thursday night’s Class AA State Tournament quarterfinal match between Hill-Murray and Moorhead was a tight battle befitting two teams seeded fifth and fourth, respectively.

Then the Pioneers (20-6-3) rattled off three goals over the last nine minutes of the second frame to pull away for a resounding 5-1 win over the Spuds. 

“From start to finish, they were the better team,” Moorhead coach Jon Ammerman said during the postgame press conference. “They did a much better job of playing fast,” Ammerman continued. “We didn’t do a good job of slowing them down.”

Charlie Strobel and Nick Pierre scored in the first period for the Pioneers, with Moorhead’s Luke Gramer scoring at the 2:44 mark of the second to cut the Hill-Murray advantage in half. 

Just over a minute after Gramer’s goal, Pierre tallied his second of the night, continuing the sophomore’s strong play against the Spuds (21-6-1). 

“In four games against us, he has two hat-tricks and two goals,” Ammerman said of Pierre. “That’s pretty good for a tenth-grader.”

Junior forward Jared Jensen then scored twice in 14 seconds for Hill-Murray, all but cementing the win for the champions of Section 4AA. 

The quarterfinal victory is the first for the Pioneers in their last three trips to the state tournament, a trend Hill-Murray coach Bill Lechner is happy to halt. 

“You get accolades because you’re in the tournament a lot, but if you don’t win that first game, it’s pretty tough,” Lechner said. “It was really good to get this win.”

Moorhead senior defenseman and Mr. Hockey finalist Luke Gramer said that the Pioneers were particularly challenging to handle on Thursday because of their dogged forecheck. 

“Definitely their speed and bow relentless they play on the puck,” Gramer said. “They just come in wave after wave at you, and we didn’t do much to slow them down.”

Pierre, a Wisconsin verbal commit, said that’s just what the Pioneers want opposing team to know about them. 

“We want to hear (people say) relentless,” Pierre said. “We want to be that team that’s really hard to play against.”