St. Thomas Academy (overall 9-5-4; Section 3AA 2-0-1; Metro East Conference tied for second place 5-2-0): The Cadets have gone through a grinding season losing, winning, and tying games but never getting their usually long winning streaks that propels STA to a 20+ game winning season.  They won’t hit twenty wins this year and after last night’s tie with Eden Prairie, winning games are almost out of reach especially four of the seven games remaining at Tartan, at Mahtomedi, at Lakeville North, and home to Hill-Murray.  All the teams in Section 3AA including the Cadets could be headed to 10 game losing seasons.  St. Thomas Academy plays no more Section 3AA foes this season.  They are locked into a 2-0-1 sectional record that consists of a 4-3 win over Rosemount, a 2-2 tie with Eastview, and a 4-1 win over Hastings.  All three games were played in the first two weeks of the season.  Burnsville has a 4-1 Section 3AA record and is favored to win their last four sectional games (Eagan, Apple Valley, Eastview, and Rosemount) sweeping the four School District 196 teams. The Blaze, with a 3-2 win over Farmington Saturday, has upped their stock in the Section 3AA rankings. With a Blaze sweep of their four remaining sectional foes, they post a 8-1-0 Section 3AA record.  Burnsville has a good case for the #1 seed in Section 3AA.  St. Thomas played well last night, but needs some quality wins.

St. Thomas Academy (overall 9-5-4; Section 3AA 2-0-1; Metro East Conference tied for second place 5-2-0): The Cadets have gone through a grinding season losing, winning, and tying games but never getting their usually long winning streaks that propels STA to a 20+ game winning season.  They won’t hit twenty wins this year and after last night’s tie with Eden Prairie, winning games are almost out of reach especially four of the seven games remaining at Tartan, at Mahtomedi, at Lakeville North, and home to Hill-Murray.  All the teams in Section 3AA including the Cadets could be headed to 10 game losing seasons.  St. Thomas Academy plays no more Section 3AA foes this season.  They are locked into a 2-0-1 sectional record that consists of a 4-3 win over Rosemount, a 2-2 tie with Eastview, and a 4-1 win over Hastings.  All three games were played in the first two weeks of the season.  Burnsville has a 4-1 Section 3AA record and is favored to win their last four sectional games (Eagan, Apple Valley, Eastview, and Rosemount) sweeping the four School District 196 teams. The Blaze, with a 3-2 win over Farmington Saturday, has upped their stock in the Section 3AA rankings. With a Blaze sweep of their four remaining sectional foes, they post a 8-1-0 Section 3AA record.  Burnsville has a good case for the #1 seed in Section 3AA.  St. Thomas played well last night, but needs some quality wins.

If Eden Prairie thought they were coming to a hockey game playing St. Thomas Academy on their home ice, they were mistaken.  The Cadets put on a ceremony and a party for both teams.  A wall of posters of those who served greeted fans walking in the door.  A color guard had been formed in a corner and carpeting was laid out on the ice.  The Cadet corps marched the flag to center ice and one by one special tribute was given to those who served.  The ceremony did not honor Cadet’s parents or grandparents specifically.  The St. Thomas Cadet corps honored the military service of parents and grandparents of the Eden Prairie players by marching each parent to center ice with each Eagle standing behind them while their military records were read and honored.  Some of the relatives who served showed up to take part; some couldn’t.  Their pictures did.  After the reading, the Cadet corps presented the colors and those honored turned to the flag while the National Anthem was sung.  After the ceremony ended, the party resumed and the hockey began.

After taking a beating in the first half of the opening period; St. Thomas Academy came back to pressure the Eagles in the second half of the period.  And it led to a Cadet goal.  A hard shot on Eden Prairie’s goalie Shawn Durocher ended up with puck dropping on the ice in front of the goalie.  The Cadet’s Jake Hardy swooped in attempting to take a shot on the rebounding puck but was taken off the play by an Eagle defender.  Carter Winkler, trailing close behind, picked up the puck at the top of the crease.  Winkler had a clear shot on Durocher and hammered a shot at point blank that Durocher blocked.  The rebound dropped into the right slot to a third Cadet forward, Brendan McFadden.  McFadden, a two time YHH Top 50 pick as a peewee, buried the puck to put St. Thomas Academy up 1-0.  The first period ended with the Cadets leading 1-0.  Eden Prairie’s Casey Mittelstadt scored in the opening minute of the second period to tie the game.  Mittelstadt, a YHH Top 50 pick from 2012, beat Cadets’ goalie Atticus Kelly.  Six minutes later, the Eagles took a 2-1 lead and held that lead going into the third period.  Eden Prairie’s Jarod Blackowiak got the goal.  Chase Foley got the third period tying goal.  Foley is the third Top 50 peewee pick to score in the game.  The two teams went scoreless in the eight minute overtime period.  Eden Prairie outshot the Cadets 37-23 in the game.        

Benilde/St. Margaret’s (overall 16-0-1; Section 6AA 1-0-0; Metro West Conference first place 2-0-0): Most rankers have the Red Knights down as the best team in the state, but not in this corner of YHH.  BSM is a smaller team with great passing and puck movement, but have yet to prove themselves as a strong team.  Last night, Farmington’s defense tied up the Red Knights’ forwards.  The speedy Tiger forwards forced the Red Knights’ points off the blue line.  Starting with their 4-4 tie with Lakeville North three weeks ago, the Red Knights are being matched or outshot when they play physically stronger teams.  Against Farmington, a better match in size and speed, BSM needed a lucky rebound to tie the game and force overtime.  Benilde still has eight games left after playing Farmington last night, three are against Minnetonka, Eden Prairie, and Wayzata with one sleeper in Section 6AA rival (and co-Rec Center tenant) St. Louis Park.  The best thing that happened to Benilde this season happened last March when Eden Prairie, Minnetonka, and Holy Family Catholic were moved to Section 2AA.  It was a move that had to upset the Prior Lake fans.  After years of placing second to Edina in Section 2AA, the MSHSL moves a beatable Edina team out of Section 2AA to 6AA and dropped three tough teams into the Lakers’ Section 2AA.   The Red Knights will still have competition.  Besides Edina, another team to watch in Section 6AA is Cretin/Derham Hall.  The Raiders lost six of their first seven games this season, but have posted a 7-1-1 record since beating East Ridge 3-2 mid-December. 

The crowd was quiet after that score, emotionally spent.  In the quiet, with a few cheers and jeers, regulation time ended in 1-1 tie setting up an eight minute overtime period.  The two teams rested the three minutes before the puck was dropped.  When it did, Farmington came out with two lines, one led by senior Grady Hauswirth and the second by junior Darby Grengs and the fans roared back to life.  Both Tiger lines took it to the tiring Red Knights moving the puck though their defense but being stymied low trying to get the good shot.  For seven plus minutes the two teams battled this way until Benilde’s Auggie Moore beat a Tiger breaking across the Red Knights blue to a Tiger pass intercepting the puck just before it hit the Tiger’s stick.  Moore knocked the puck forward and into the neutral zone and took off beating the Tiger defense in neutral ice and broke left heading for the left corner in the Farmington zone.  He cleared the defense enough to pass to Gleekel who had cut behind him into the left slot.  Gleekel beat Enright for the overtime win.  The Red Knights remain a top ranked team and Farmington showed they are more than ready to make a run in Section 1AA.  It was a great game played in a great arena.  Fans leaving could feel the freshness walking into the cold night.

Hill-Murray (overall 12-4-1; Section 4AA 4-0-0; Metro East Conference first place 7-0-0): The Hill finds itself in a rare position, looking up in the Section 4AA rankings at Stillwater.  The problem is the Pioneers’ current view of the Ponies is a distant one, the Ponies are that far ahead.  But this will all come to a head when the two teams met Saturday evening at Aldrich Arena.  The #1 seed is likely to go to the winner of that game.  There is some value in the #1 seed, but not much.  Section 4AA is shaping up as a two team sectional between the Hill and Stillwater with the Xcel ticket going to the winner.  But one should note that Tartan has pushed Hill-Murray twice this season losing close games and hosts St. Thomas Academy in what is likely to be an old Eastside style game at “Titanville” January 30th.  The Titans should be mad at themselves for losing to Park/Cottage Grove last night. 

Hill Murray-5 Blaine-2

Blaine could not get rolling in the first two periods last night.  The Bengals offense was out of synch on their puck movement and Hill-Murray beat Blaine to the puck time and time again.  The Hill scored twice in the first period with Brock Bremer (a Top 50 peewee A pick when he played for Forest Lake) figuring in both scores.  Bremer assisted Dylan Mills on the first Pioneer score and scored the second Hill-Murray goal.  The Pioneers led 2-0 at the end of the first period and added a goal in the second, penalty marred, period.  Blaine played most of the second period with players in the penalty box.  In the waining minutes of period two, Hill players joined the Bengals, sitting.  Joey Baumann got the lone Hill-Murray score in the second period.

Leading 3-0 at the start of the third period, Blaine finally started to roll with Riley Tufte scoring in the first two minutes of play.  Tufte’s score cut the Pioneers’ lead to 3-1.  Two minutes later, the Hill drew two successive tripping penalties putting Blaine on a 5-on-3 power play.  Ten seconds into the power play, the Bengals gave up a shorthanded goal to Hill-Murray’s Luke Ranallo.  It was a game killer for the Pioneers.  Still on the 5-on-3 power play, Blaine’s Luke Notermann scored to cut the Hill’s lead to 4-2, but the Bengals could not beat Hill-Murray’s goalie Jake Begley after that second goal.  The Pioneers’ Mills would add a late goal in the period to end the scoring at 5-2. Begley faced 18 Bengal shots in the third period giving up two goals.  Blaine’s opening period play and their penalties in the second period cost the Bengals the game.  Hill-Murray moved the puck well.  They consistently beat the bigger and stronger Bengals to the puck to win the game.