St. Cloud beat Denfeld 3-1 in a game that matched differing coaching strategy’s.  It was a chess match between the two benches where at the opening of the third period, St. Cloud Cathedral “castled” to block the power of Denfeld’s strongest players and struck late in the game for the insurance score.  Cathedral’s coach Derrick Brown, the former Luverne coach, took over the Cathedral job this fall.  When he applied, he did not believe he would get the job.  Brown had played high school hockey in the St. Cloud area and his parents live nearby.  The Cathedral job was a chance to return home, to an area in which he grew up playing hockey.  And it was a job with new challenges for the coach.

Brown had a tough decision leaving Luverne.  Luverne is in the process of becoming a great hockey town with the return of senior Chaz Smedsrud and the emergence of sophomores Jaxson Nelson, Declan Beers (YHH Peewee AA/A player of the year in 2014), and Trey Roberts.  The Cardinals are 8-2-0 and are favored this year to get to state.  If they do, it will be Luverne’s second time in three years.  Brown coached their first state tourney entry.  At Luverne, he loved the access he had to players and their development.  He was involved with both the Luverne youth and high school programs.  When YHH first met Brown, he was in the Blue Mound Arena working with the girls that would be playing that fall for the high school team.  It was a tough decision for the young coach to move on.  At Cathedral, things are different.  In his first season at Cathedral, Brown has inherited a senior team with a good shot at the Xcel next March.  If Cathedral returns to state, it will be their second time in three years.  But first the Crusaders had to beat Denfeld.  They were hanging on to a 2-1 lead at the start of the third period.

At the end of the second period in last night’s game against Denfeld, the Crusader Coach Brown had #2 Logan Neu and wings #4 Jake Van Halbeck and #7 Jack Petroske flying high.  They had dominated play in the last half of the second period, but couldn’t score in part because Denfeld’s coach Kevin Smalley was countering 2-4-7 with his big defenseman #7 Ben Kidd.  With the score 2-1 at the start of the third period, Brown switched moving Neu, Van Hallbeck, and Petroske around.  The Denfeld bench strategy in the third was to get their top line with Kidd on the ice against a weaker line to tie the game.  The Crusader “Texas two-step” switch worked.  The three or four times Kidd and top line hit the ice together, they faced ruminants of Cathedral’s top players.  It led to a key play late in the game.

Over the first fifteen minutes of the third period the two benches sparred like “championship boxers” at the end of a fight.  Each was trying to match the other and look for that opening.  Denfeld had a power play opportunity, but could not score.  With five minutes to play, Kidd drew a high stick and had to sit.  It was a coincidental penalty and the 5-on-5 play continued.  Kidd came out of the penalty box, took a shift, and came off the ice with two minutes to play.  The Hunters were pressuring the Crusaders in the Cathedral zone when Kidd left the ice.  Suddenly St. Cloud’s 2-4-7 line was on the ice and the play shifted from the St. Cloud zone.  The puck was knocked loose in center ice with Neu in control.  On a solo rush, Neu beat Alander for the insurance goal and a 3-1 Cathedral lead with less than three minutes to play.  Van Hallbeck got the assist.  In the battle of benches, Cathedral won getting their match-up for the goal to ice the game.  With just over two minutes to play, the Crusaders had a 3-1 lead.  Denfeld did not go easy.  They spent most of the last two minutes storming the St. Cloud goal.  A Crusader roughing penalty with just under a minute to play helped.  The Hunters had three straight face offs in the last minute and used an equivalent of a football dive play to try to score but could not beat SCC’s goalie Karki (and at least once, a ref). It was a good game.

The two junior varsity teams played up and down hockey in the opening period.  Both teams took turns rushing the puck and getting off some shots on net.  Denfeld had most of their rushes lost to the Crusader defense turning the puck into the corner.  The Crusader lines fared better.  Some of the Cathedral rushes were beating the defense low with the puck carrier getting to the net or St. Cloud forwards would turn some of the rushes into a late 2-on-0 attack below the slot.  St. Cloud would sustain pressure off the rush.  Hunter goalie Benjamin Lafont had to make some tough stops.  The first period ended in a scoreless tie, Cathedral outshot Denfeld 17-5 in the period.  A Denfeld penalty in the last minute of play put the Hunters on the penalty kill for most of the opening two minutes of second period.

One minute into the second period, the Crusader power play set up in the Hunter zone and moved the puck to defenseman Jared Athmann.  Athmann shot from the left blue line area beating Lafont for the first score of the game.  Matthew Wedin and Reagan Garden got the assists.  At this point in the game, the Crusader line centered by Quinton Young with wings Zach Sellner and James Anderson started to dominate their shifts.  They were getting success low in the Denfeld zone using good line play and their size to get better shots.  St. Cloud continued the attack.  Two minutes later, Zack Sellner ended up with the puck in the left slot.  His quick shot beat Lafont.  The puck hit just inside the right post low and bounced into the net.  Young got the assist.  St. Cloud Cathedral’s jv team led Denfeld 2-0 with four minutes gone in the period.  A St. Cloud penalty thirty seconds after taking a 2-0 lead eased the pressure on the Hunter defense, but Denfeld failed to score on the following power play.  A minute after the power play ended, St. Cloud’s line of Young, Sellner, and Anderson took a face in neutral ice and beat Denfeld for the Crusader’s third score.  Young got the goal with Anderson and Kevin Hayward getting the assists.  The second period ended with St. Cloud leading 3-0.  After outshooting the Hunters 17-5 in the opening period and going scoreless, Cathedral scored three goals on eleven shots in the second period while outshooting the Hunters two to one.   

Lines are changed in most jv games in the third period and that happened Tuesday.  St. Cloud Cathedral got the initial pressure from a line with Anderson, teamed for the period with Nathan Windfeldt.  Anderson got the score.  The Cathedral offense hit Anderson with a pass at the blue line.  Anderson scored beat the Hunter defense for the goal.  Windfeldt and Wedin got the assists.  The Crusader led the Hunters 4-0 with 10 minutes left to play.  Four minutes later, Anderson scored again.  In the left slot, Anderson was fed a nice pass and one-timed the puck past Lafont for the fifth Crusader goal.  St. Cloud won 5-0.  Windfeldt and Jake Minkkinen got the assists.  Lafont had a busy night stopping 36 of 41 Crusader shots.  Crusader goalie Camren Dehler stopped 20 Hunter shots to earn the shutout.