In a tight game, Section 8′s Jared Bethune scored the winning goal three minutes into overtime to give the White team from Section 8 a 5-4 win.

Section 4′s Peter Tufto/St Thomas Academy scored a hat trick in the first half.  Section 4 led 3-2 going into the second half and held a 4-3 lead with under two minutes to play.  Section 8′s Wyatt Ortloft/Thief River Falls scored with 90 seconds left in regulation time to send the game into overtime.

In the opening game Sunday, Section 3 and Section 7 battled in the seventh place game.  Section 7 won 5-3.  The game started off even until Logan Nelson/St. Michael-Albertville scored from the left slot area to put Section 7 up 1-0 10 minutes into the first half.  Two minutes later, Gold added another goal off a melee that resulted in a rebound to the slot in front of the Green’s net to Gunnar Harris/Grand Rapids.  He drove the puck in the net to put Gold up 2-0.

Around 5 minute mark, Green pressured the Section 7 deep in the Gold’s zone and it resulted in Garret Jagoe/Rosemount putting a backhand goal from the left to cut Gold’s lead to 2-1.

With a minute to go in the half, a Gold player rushed the puck the length of the ice and made a neat drop pass in Section 3′s right faceoff circle to Logan Nelson.  Nelson forward powered the puck through the goalie’s leg pad and glove save attempt into the upper left corner to put Section 7 up 3-1 at the half.

The Gold’s Zach Sitarz/Andover and the Green’s Derek Hammer/East Ridge had good opening half.  Toby Sengvongxay/Luverne played a solid defense.  YHH has been watch Toby since he was a peewee and he is still skating down wings that break on the opposite side of the ice.  Section 3′s defense was improving as the first half ended.  Even though the Gold led, the second half looked to be a tough period for the Gold.

The second half turned into a battle of goaltenders. 

Everybody expected Zach Driscoll to play solid in the Section 3 nets and the Eastview State Tourney goalie did not disappoint making some tremendous multiple saves against a hard changing Gold team led by Zitarz and a combination of Jonah Bischoff/Grand Rapids and Cody Budisalovich at wing.  But nobody expected the same or better play of Section 7′s goalie, Darion Hanson/St. Francis.

Hanson saw the most pressure especially with Hammer’s line on the ice.  Hanson gave up 2 goals in the second half, one a penalty shot.  But he made numerous tough shots and played well.  Hanson kept the Section 3 team, that skated it’s best game of the tourney, off the scoreboard enough to keep his team in the game.

It took the Green 15 minutes to finally beat Hanson and it took them a three rebound play to score the goal.  Benjamin Raymond/Eagan scored the goal on the third rebound at the 10 minute mark to cut the lead to 3-2.

Not to be outdone, the Gold came back with their own multiple rebound play four minutes later; finally beating Driscoll (by YHH count Driscoll stopped the first four shots in that sequence) after he had sprawled to make a weak side save.  Kyle Klatt/Cloquet picked up the rebound and scored over the down Driscoll to put Gold up 4-2 with two minutes left in the game.  A green penalty shot twenty seconds later, scored by Jagoe, cut the lead to 4-3.

The Gold’s Cody Budisalovich scored an empty netter with 8 seconds left in the game.  Final score, Section 7 beat Section 3 5-3.  It was an entertaining game.

It was Section 5 or District 10 plus Hermantown versus Section 2 a team that is basically composed of players from District 6.  The first 10 minutes of the opening half were boring.  The two teams waltzed each other around the ice like they were preparing for an appearance on “Dancing with the Stars”.

But at the 14 minute mark, Burnsville’s Brock Boeser changed that; he came out on the ice and shook up the calm, banging a few bodies before scoring from the right side crease area on a quick backhanded.  Boeser’s score put Section 2 up 1-0 and it also got Section 5 going.

Boring was gone and the game became a very entertaining game.

The  Lt Blue Section 5 team scored 30 seconds later to tie the game 1-1.  Jack LeBlanc/Hermantown scored and the Blue follwed that goal with a second goal by Blake Neumann a minute later to take a 2-1 lead.

But the Orange forwards were starting to roll, beating the Blue defense in the neutral  zone and setting up low in the Section 5 zone.  They scored off a face off a minute later to tie the game 2-2.  Casey Dornbach/Edina won a face off left in the Blue’s zone and set up Edina team mate Henry Bowlby for the goal.  A minute later, the Orange’s John Ferguson socred to give Section 2 the lead 3-2.

Boeser’s line came out near the end of the first half and he put on another show as the line dominated play in the Blue’s zone, setting up and executing a neat passing play that resulted in Chase Ellingson/Breck scoring to take a 4-2 lead into halftime.  Section 5 team looked to be “on the ropes” as they left the ice.

But they came back.  Section 5 scored early in the second half to come back into the game.  David Brumm/Maple Grove got the goal.  The 4-3 score held until the 10 minute mark with the Blue dominating play most of the game.

Then Boeser took over on the ice again at the 10 minute mark.  He controlled the puck and just skated around the Blue’s zone.  Section 5 players on the ice looked mesmerized.  Boeser found a comfortable spot at the center blue line and fired a rocket.  The Blue goalie never moved. Section 2 led 5-3.

That goal fired up the Blues again and they came back with a vengence scoring twice in the next 5 minutes.  Michael Talbot scored with under 5 minutes left in the game to cut Section 2′s lead to 5-4.  David Brumm got the tying goal using the off forward as a decoy to get the goalie thinking left and he came in from the right and buried the puck.  Game tied 5-5 at the end of regulation.

The Orange coaches must have known their personal.  For the 4 on 4 overtime, they put Alex Robbel out at defense with Boeser.  The two went at the Blue team like a hot knife through butter.   Robbel picked up a loose puck in his own zone, carried it into the Blue’s zone, and set up two other players with passes for shots on goal from the right boards blue line.  After the second pass, Robbel dropped into the face off circle right low, took a rebound of a hard shot from the left by Boeser and buried the puck for the winner 6-5.  Thirty seconds had lapsed in the overtime.  Third place goes to Section 5.

It was the Sabres U16 core versus the juggernaughts from top ranked high school teams Wayzata and Benilde-St. Margeret’s.  But it was not the offensive show expected.

The first half was controlled by the Section 1 defensemen (Tyler Jutting/Mankato West, Colin Saccoman/Shattuck, Jack Sedek/Lakeville North, Jordan Kiehr/Shattuck, David Bernu/Farmington and Erik Holmstrom/Farmington.  Bernu and Holmstrom have been paired together at defense since they were first year peewees (and YHH was amazed with their play); but all six just went out and showed everybody how to play defensive hockey.

All six played in coordination with each other to take the passing game away from the Grey lines.  Their play disorganized the Grey rush in the neutral ice, the physical size and strength took away the Grey movement in the Red zone corners and they alternated their play to close down the slot.  The Grey forwards had no room to operate.  The Grey rushes were constantly driven to the boards with the breaking wing’s passing lanes closed to him until he was on the ice or out of the play.

The Grey defense played hard and took away much of the Red offense except that the red forwards had that Shattuck  physicalness that came through in their play in the Grey zone.  At the 19 minute mark of the first half, Tyler Bump/Shattuck “bumped” his way through three Grey defenders and got pulled down in the slot.  He scored the only goal of the first half on penalty shot to give Section 1 a 1-0 lead at the halftime.

The second half was a repeat of the first.  The Red defense was relentless and the back checking by the Red forwards especially the Shattuck players, mopped up what the Red defense couldn’t take care of.  Lawrence Jungwirth was a little invisible in the first game YHH saw, but he played an outstanding second half.

Four minutes into the period, Jungwirth drew a penalty on a hard rush.  The Shattuck forwards tended to lockup with the Grey defense and keep control of the themselves and the puck.  It resulted in some penalty calls.  Jungwirth scored on the penalty, but he had figured out that with play continuing after he shot, he didn’t have to skate to the goalie and shot.  Instead, he skated to the goalie, got him down, held his shot, and drifted back to the left side and lifted the shot over the down goalie.  Red led 2-0.

Jungwirth scored a second goal 10 minutes later to end the scoring 3-0.  The Wayzata and Benilde forwards had a great tourney for the runner up Grey team; for the first time YHH could see the players have added strength and grown.  Both High School teams will be fun to watch; but most high school coaches can only dream of having a defense like the Red team;s defense.