Last night at Wakota Arena in South St. Paul, District 8 completed it’s second round of their Peewee AA playoffs and sent two teams home.

In the first semifinal game, #1 seeded Lakeville South (and NOW ranked #2 in the state) beat #5 seeded Eagan 3-1.  The D8 regular season champs will play Eastview in the playoff championship game Sunday at Wakota.

The #5 ranked AA team in the state, Eastview was seeded #2 in the playoffs.  The Lightning beat the #3 seeded Lakeville North 2-1 to advance to the finals.  Lakeville North is ranked #20 in the state by NOW.

In the first round of the loser bracket, #4 seeded Hastings beat #8 seeded Farmington 5-1 to end the Tigers’ season.  The Raiders will play Lakeville North.  The winner of that game will advance to play in D8 playoff’s third place game Saturday.  The loser will play Sunday for D8’s #5 seed in a loser goes home game.

In the final game played Tuesday night at Wakota, #6 seeded Woodbury beat #7 seeded Rosemount 3-2 in the second loser bracket game of the night.  Woodbury plays Eagan in Saturday with the winner advancing to the third place game Saturday; Rosemount’s season ended with the loss.

The D8 playoffs have gone according to form, there have been few surprises.

In last night’s game, Lakeville South scored two quick goals in the first period to take a 2-0 lead over Eagan.  The Cougars David Byers buried a shot from the right face off circle 5 minutes into the game.  Byers beat Eagan’s goalie Field Mitchell with a hard shot to the upper right corner to put South up 1-0.  Jack Olsen and Rik Antonakis got the assists.

Two minutes later, the Cougars Dawson Klein scored to put South up 2-0.  Aaron Grounds and Olsen got the assists. Olsen scored the Lakeville South’s third goal one minute into the second period.  Ty Black got the assist.

Eagan’s defense, led by Mitchell shut the Cougars down for the rest of the game.  The Wildcat’s Zack Zemlak scored five minutes into the second period to end the scoring 3-1.  Luke Williams got the assist.

Mitchell stopped 35 shots in the game for Eagan.  Penalties were not a factor, but Mitchell had to survive a first period crash.

The second semifinal game was a low scoring, wide open, game.  It is a contradiction in hockey to have low scoring game with wide open, fast paced skating with 67 shots on goal (YHH count).  Both Trevors, North’s Trevor Smreker and Eastview’s Trevor Lunde, played exceptional games in the net.

Add to that the play of Michell and South’s Isaiah Dilaura in the nets in the first game and it was goalie night in the semifinals at Wakota last night.

Both Eastview and North scored in the first period.  Eastview’s Noah Desroscher scored the first four minutes into the game.  Desroscher’s goal was a power play goal.  He would later score the game winner.  Lenny Nunn got the assist.

North’s Cole Pearson scored a power play goal with 6 minutes left in the first period.  Maggie Flaherty and Garrett Daly got the assists.

Desroscher’s second goal came late in the second period.  He took a hard shot from the right face off circle.  The puck caromed off the right pipe corner, traveled the length of the top bar and hit the left corner bouncing downward into the goal.  Eastview led 2-1.

It was the Trevor Lunde show in the third period.  Eastview forwards were still rolling, but the Panthers were hammering the Eastview net, especially as the game was ending.  They had numerous good shots low in the crease and couldn’t beat Lunde on shots from five to ten feet.  At times the Panthers would crash the Eastview goal and physically try to push the puck past Lunde.  Nothing worked.  Eastview won the game 2-1.

In the loser’s bracket, Hastings beat Farmington 5-1; but it was the Hastings’ forwards Cole Huettl and Jayden Axelrod show.  Huettl ended up with a hat trick and an assist.  He was involved in four of the five Hastings’s scores.  Axelrod scored once and assisted Huettl on two of Huettl’s scores.  Hastings Mike Quinn scored an unassisted shothanded goal to complete the scoring for Hastings.  Farmington’s Zach Willis scored the Tigers goal unassisted.

Woodbury scored early in the second period and late in the second period and then added a goal halfway through the third period and seemed to be breezing to a win over Rosemount.  But the Irish got their “dander up” in the last two minutes of the game and scored twice to almost come back.   Woodbury won 3-2.

The Predators’ Thomas Purton scored a goal and got an assist to lead Woodbury in scoring.  Tyler Johnson and Trent Stene scored for Woodbury.
The D8 peewee AA playoffs will end this weekend with games played at Wakota Arena in South St. Paul.