Roseville beat Cottage Grove 6-3

Six Roseville players (Nate Boss, Carver Martin, Toby Curtiss, Ryan O’Neill, Adam King, and Kai Benson) scored in the Raiders win over Park Cottage Grove; the Raider’s Nik Norman set up three of them.

The opening period was an evenly skated game for the first half; but as period wore on, Roseville put the pressure on the Wolfpack defense and scored three goals to take a 3-0 lead into the second period and earn 2 pool points.

Park Cottage Grove bounced back to take the second period.  Their defense  started to move the Roseville rush to the outside forcing the play to the boards.  The Wolfpack’s Carter Roering scored the lone second period goal to cut Roseville’s lead to 3-1 and give PGC 2 points for winning the second period.

Roseville won the third period and the game ending the game 6-3 and earning 10 of the 12 points.  PCG ended up with 2 points.  Roseville plays Apple Valley and Lakeville South Saturday.  Lakeville South plays Park Cottage Grove.  The Lakeville South/Roseville winner Saturday will likely take the pool, the loser may need to win more than 3 pool points to advance to Sunday’s championship game.

Minneapolis Storm beat Woodbury 6-4; beat Burnsville 3-0

There is a song called “The Wreck of Old 97”.  Some may know it by a different version, “Casey Jones”.  Watching the Storm forwards charge down the ice, often cutting the corner, beating the Predator’s defense, and going full speed across the top of the crease trying to score brings a lyric from that song to mind…”He was goin' down that grade makin' 90 miles an hour, when his whistle broke into a scream”….  Amazingly, more than once Woodbury’s goalie Josh Davis stood his ground and came up with a save.

This game was one of the more interesting games to watch because of great individual plays made by both teams.  Woodbury jumped to a 2-0 lead in the first 7 minutes of the game on goals by Nick Basten and Zach Brydges and held off the Storm holding them to a single goal by Charlie Warnert late in the period.  The 2-1 lead at the end of period one, earned Woodbury 2 points.

Halfway through the second period, Woodbury’s Tanner Stafne scored to put the Predators up 3-1.  But the Storm struck back on goals by Mackie Zabinski and Gavin Best to tie the game 3-3 at the end of the second.  Those goals gave the Storm 2 points for winning the second period.

The Storm’s Jake Hale took over in the third period posting a hat trick to lead Minneapolis to a 7-4 win.  Woodbury’s Brydges scored the Predators only goal in the third period.  The Storm ended up taking 10 of the available points; Woodbury took 2 points.

In their evening game, the Storm continued attacking the net.  They beat Burnsville 3-0 behind goals by Jake Hale and Joe Miller (2).  Hale ended up with 3 points in the game.  Goalie Lucas White got the shutout.

Lakeville South beat Apple Valley 7-1

The Cougars never gave the Eagles a chance to get going Friday morning; they scored three quick goals to put the Eagles down 3-0.  Apple Valley showed up with a short bench (eight players) and tried to stretch South’s offense by playing both wings between the Cougars’ blue line and the center line while the Cougars attacked the Eagles in the Apple Valley zone.  That move resulted in most of the game being 3-on-3 hockey played in the Apple Valley zone.

Lakeville South’s Sam Elasky scored in the first minute of the opening period unassisted to put the Cougars up 1-0.  The Cougars’ Ryan Antonakis scored twice in the next two minutes.  Lakeville South led 3-0 with three minutes gone in the game.

No more goals were scored until four minutes into the second period.  The Cougar’s Adam Harvey scored a power goal and 15 seconds later, Jack Sprengeler scored to give the Cougars a 5-0 lead at the end of the second period.

The Valley’s Michael Beneke scored unassisted at the opening of the third period, but the Cougars came back to win the period on goals by Tucher Schumacher and Elasky to end the scoring 7-1.  Lakeville ended up winning all the periods to take 12 of the possible 13 points in the game.  The Eagles were zeroed.

Eastview beats the Skippers 7-3

After a period and a half of play, Eastview found themselves in a deep hole, trialing 3-1, facing a 5-on-3 penalty kill, and watching one of their coaches being banished from the bench by the ref to leave the bench.  Somehow, the Lightning pulled themselves together, killed the penalties, and scored twice to tie the game 3-3 going into the third period.

Second period goals by the Lightning’s Cullen Johnson and Jake Lieder tied the game; third period goals by Johnson and Lieder put Eastview ahead 5-3 halfway through the third period.  The Lightning added two more to win 7-3.  It was quite a mid-game turn around and it puts Eastview right back into the middle of the chase for Sunday’s championship trophy.

But Saturday they will not have their assistant coach; will they miss him?

Jefferson ties Woodbury 3-3

Woodbury took a 2-1 lead in the first period, added a third goal in the second period, and gave up two goals in the third period to the Jags to tie the game 3-3.  Jefferson won the shootout.  All this matters because Saturday is crunch time in the Burnsville tourney and every pool point counts.  Woodbury ended up with 7 pool points, Jefferson with 6 pool points.  The Jags play the Storm Saturday and are in a position to advance if they beat the Storm.  Woodbury with 9 pool points need to beat Burnsville Saturday in every period and shut the Blaze out.  That gives the Predators 13 more pool points and an outside shot to advance as a wild card.

Jefferson got their three goals from three different players (Tyler Rollwagon, Grayson Hight, and Cole Jungwirth).  Woodbury goals were scored by Jack Brown, Matt Sorel, and Tanner Stafne.  The Jag’s Justin Johnson scored the shootout winner to earn the Jags the extra pool point.

At the Burnsville Tourney, as pool play winds down, every period in most of the final games matter.