St. Cloud Cathedral, East Grand Forks to play for Class 1A boys hockey title

Outsiders may have thought a state title game berth was out of reach for East Grand Forks.

At the end of the regular season, the Green Wave had a losing record. They were a talented team, but their schedule was one of the state’s toughest.

On Friday at Xcel Energy Center, the fighting spirit that pulled them through a sub-.500 season helped the Green Wave erase a three-goal deficit and score five unanswered goals in a 7-5 win over Hibbing/Chisholm in a Class 1A boys hockey state semifinal.

The Green Wave (15-13-2) will play defending champion St. Cloud Cathedral (20-8-2) at noon Saturday. Cathedral beat Orono 4-1 in the earlier semifinal.

“Us boys, we like to play hard,” East Grand Forks senior forward Hunter Varnson said. “It wasn’t the best regular season. We had a tough schedule. But we all had faith and we believed that we could make it this far.”

Friday was a roller coaster of a game and often an uphill battle for the fourth-seeded Green Wave. Top-seeded Hibbing/Chisholm (20-10-0) led 3-1 after the first period. In the second period, Whitaker Rewertz and Isaiah Hildenbrand scored less than a minute apart to expand the Bluejackets’ lead to 5-2.

East Grand Forks head coach Tyler Palmiscno had faith his team would respond.

“Our schedule prepared us for a moment like today,” he said. “Being down 3-1 after one [period] wasn’t great. We didn’t waver. Being down 5-2 at one point, we didn’t waver. We just kept finding a way to make the next play.”

Varnson scored with 1:55 left in the second, and Judd Pesch scored with one second left in the period. Cole Bies scored back-to-back goals in the opening minute of the third period, giving the Green Wave their first lead of the game at 6-5. Jace Panzer’s empty-net goal with 25 seconds remaining solidified the win.

St. Cloud Cathedral 4, Orono 1: The second-seeded Crusaders weathered some early chances by the sixth-seeded Spartans to return to the state championship game with a chance to become the first back-to-back 1A champs since Hermantown in 2016 and 2017. Cathedral also won in 2019.

The Crusaders scored on their first and third shots on goal. They carried that momentum throughout the game.

“For us to get the first couple really stabilizes the bench,” Cathedral coach Robbie Stocker said. “I think a game like this, there’s nothing you can do to prepare to be playing in front of 11 (thousand), 12,000 people. It’s just not something we typically have. So, there’s always a little bit of a feeling it out. And we were probably feeling it out a little bit too much to start the game. But to calm back down and get a couple there in the first was huge.”

The Crusaders took a 1-0 lead 2 minutes, 10 seconds into the game. Junior Griffin Sturm took a shot out wide and senior Joey Gillespie buried the rebound for his third goal of the tournament.

Cathedral doubled its lead a few minutes later when senior Jaeger Wood took a pass along the boards from Caden Johnson, got behind the Orono defense and scored his 22nd goal of the season.

Orono (16-11-3) was without leading scorer junior Jackson Knight, who has 33 goals and 62 points this season. Knight participated in warmups and sat on the bench throughout the game but didn’t take a shift.

After Wednesday’s quarterfinal, Orono coach Mitch Hall said Knight was out with a “last-minute injury.”

Cathedral scored 32 seconds into a second-period power play to take a 3-0 lead. Wood made a pass from behind the net to freshman Bo Schmidt who got the puck past goaltender Evan Schmidt’s glove. It was Bo Schmidt’s second goal of the tournament and 17th of the season.

With its goalie pulled, Orono got a goal from senior Ethan Pagel on a 6-on-4 power-play with 3:21 left in the third period. With just over a minute left in the game, Wood scored an empty-net goal.

Crusaders junior goalie Keaton LeGrande made 23 saves. Cathedral hadn’t allowed a goal since the 15:15 mark of the third period of its section semifinal victory over Little Falls.

“I’d say [LeGrande] was the X factor for them,” Orono coach Mitch Hall said. “We had some opportunities. He made some sprawling saves. We’ve got to tip our hat to him.”