Edina is on a 15 game winning streak.  If you are counting ties the streak in longer.  The only game they have lost this year was to Lakeville North 2-1 in a game played in early December at the Lakeville Ames Arena.  That arena was packed with Lakeville fans four deep in places along the boards.  As the tourney opens, the #2 seeded Hornets look prime to take their third straight Class AA title by beating Lakeville North, seeded #1, in the other bracket in Saturday’s championship game.  The key to the Hornets success against Bemidji will be the play of the Edina’s top two lines, both senior driven and their top two defensive pair with the second pair anchored by ninth grader Clayton Phillips.  Senior goaltender Kobie Boe has been solid in the nets all season.

Bemidji lost three games in mid-January and those losses may have dimmed some Lumberjack fans’ hopes of making state this year.  But Bemidji has not lost since going 9-0-1 in their last 10 games led by the solid goaltending of senior Grant Tharaldson and a tough defensive corps anchored by senior Michael Forseth, juniors Nick Leitner and Erik Fitzgerald, and ninth grader Chase Hartje.  The Lumberjacks have given up just two goals in those 10 games.  Bemidji’s top line is centered by Brady Tatro.  Tatro had a great summer playing in Minnesota Hockey’s High Performance program and being evaluated for USA’s U17 team.  He is Bemidji’s leading scorer.

Edina blew the game open in the first minutes of the first period.  The Hornets were buzzing the Lumberjacks and the temperature neared zero degrees outside.  Two minutes into the game, a Hornet forward ended up with the puck in the high slot left and fired at the net.  The puck was deflected off a Bemidji defender right and bounced left into the net past a surprised Tharaldson.  Edina’s Matt Masterman scored with Casey Dornbach and Clayton Phillips getting the assists.  All three were YHH Top 50 picks as a peewee.  Two minutes later, Parker Mishmash scored.  Edina attacked Bemidji low and moved the puck right.  Dylan Malmquist made a sharp pass from the right side that found Mishmash on the left side.  Mishmash one-timed the puck in the net before Tharaldson could fully turn and face the shooter.  Garrett Wait and Malmquist got the assists.  Both were YHH Top 50 picks as peewees.  Wait scored Edina’s third goal of the period.  He used his body to block a Bemidji pass on a breakout at the Lumberjacks blue line, controlled the rebounding puck, and soloed in on Tharaldson beating the goalie with a shot into the upper right side of the net from the right crease area.  It was an unassisted score.  Edina led 3-0 at the end of the first period and outshot the Lumberjacks 12-2 in the period.  A late Edina penalty gave the Lumberjacks a power play for the first 30 seconds of the period.  

Bemidji came out of the locker room and scored two goals in the first minute of the second period.  The Lumberjacks set up controlling the puck off the faceoff in the Hornets zone and executed a nice three pass play with the puck ending up on Rocky Copiskey’s stick on the weak side for an easy score.  Copiskey’s score cut the Hornet’s lead to 3-1.  Tatro and Jake Leitner got the assists.  Leitner came back thirty seconds later to score again picking the puck off the end boards behind the Hornets’ net and beating goalie Kobi Boe at the left pipe to punch the puck across the goal line.  In one minute, Bemidji was back into the game.  Unfortunately, two minutes later, Edina scored again.

On the attack, the Hornets’ Ben Copland put a shot on Tharaldson that resulted in a hard rebound to Bram Sheerer in the left face off circle.  Sheerer fired a quick backhander past the diving Bemidji goalie to again give Edina a three lead.  Copeland got the assist.  Edina outshot the Lumberjacks again in the second period 12-8.  The second period ended with the score 5-2.

The third period was anticlimactic for the first 15 minutes of the 17 minute period.  Edina tended to play back on the offense.  Instead of sending two players deep and forming a triangle around the Bemidji net (with the point of the triangle in the slot), the Hornets held back in mid-zone on the Bemidji breakouts content to let the game clock run out.  With two minutes left in the period, Bemidji’s Jack Johnson broke across the Edina blue line heading into the right faceoff.  He beat the lone Edina defender and let a shot got that slid along the ice beating Edina’s goalie Boe just inside the left pipe.  The score cut Edina’s lead to 5-3.  Josh Lusby got the assist.  Things really heated up when a minute later Lusby got lined up in the slot on a faceoff to the left of the Edina goal.  He got the faceoff and one timed the puck at Boe that found a path through Boe and into the net.  Edina led 5-4 and hung on until Dornbach’s empty netter.  The Hornets will play the winner of the second afternoon game between St. Thomas Academy and Duluth East.  Bemidji plays the loser in a consolation game Friday morning at Ridder.