The three districts that comprise the North Region completed their peewee A district playoffs last weekend. All the seeds are known and the first round draw is known. The Peewee A North Regional this year will be played at Two Harbors, March 1-3. The four quarterfinal games will be played on Friday starting 2:00 in the afternoon.
Virginia won D12 #1 seed last Sunday and will open the tournament. In the first quarterfinal game, the Blue Devils will play Crookston, D16’s #3 seed. Virginia sweep their two playoff games beating International Falls 7-1 and Eveleth-Mesabi East 10-0 in the championship game. Eveleth, after beating Greenway 4-3 in the semifinals, lost to Greenway 7-1 in the game for the #2 seed. Crookston beat Thief River Falls 4-3 to earn D16’s #3 seed.
Warroad and Proctor play in the second quarterfinal game at Two Harbors on Friday. Warroad beat Crookston 2-1 and then surprised East Grand Forks in the championship game. The Warriors beat the Green Wave 5-2 to get D16’s #1 seed. Proctor beat Duluth East A 4-0 to take D11’s #2 seed. The Rails lost to Duluth Denfeld 5-1 in the championship game.
The third game Friday matches Duluth Denfeld, D11’s #1 seed, against Greenway, D12’s #2 seed. The Hunters had to beat Proctor twice to take the #1 seed. They beat the Rails 4-2 and 5-1 in the D11 playoffs. Greenway eliminated International Falls beating the Broncos 7-4 in a tough game Sunday morning and beat Eveleth Sunday evening easily 7-1.
The final quarterfinal game Friday will match East Grand Forks (D16’s #2 seed) and Duluth East A. East Grand Forks was the regular season D16 champion and were surprised by Warroad in the championship game of the district playoffs losing 5-2. The Green Wave beat Thief River Falls 6-4 to get to the Championship game. Duluth East A eliminated Hermantown A 5-1 Saturday before losing to Proctor in the semifinal game.
NOW ranked # 15 Proctor is the highest ranked peewee A team in the North Region. Duluth Denfeld, ranked #24, is the next highest ranked peewee A team. With the two teams in opposite brackets, the North Region state tourney entries could both be from D11.