Hill-Murray avenged a title-game loss to Edina in the Class 2A girls hockey state championships Saturday night at the Xcel Energy Center. Two overtimes were required to produce a 5-4 victory for the No. 3 seed Pioneers over the top-seeded Hornets.
A senior forward from Hill-Murray, Ella Hornung, got credit for the deflection goal at 2:04 of the second overtime. Until then, the youth of Hill-Murray was repeatedly served as the game wore on Saturday.
“It surprised me how we had our legs in the third period and they seemed tired,” co-head coach John Pohl said. “We got some breaks, but we earned our breaks.”
Freshman forward Gwynn Skoogman scored Saturday and was joined by 10th-graders Emily Pohl and Elliana Engelhardt — who tied the game 4-4 with 3:41 to play in regulation. It was a quick and game-changing goal from two members of Hill-Murray’s “green line” of sophomores who have been on fire this tournament.
“Edina has big, strong girls, and I was worried they might win out as the game wore on,” Pohl said. “You need a team, and we had that depth. We got a fortunate bounce.”
Eighth-grade goaltender Piper Tam played with poise beyond her years.
Tam’s counterpart, though, senior goaltender Reese McConnell, could not match her 15-save shutout from a year ago. But she got help from older teammates. Such as junior forward Cate McCoy, who scored her team’s first and third goals, junior forward Lorelai Nelson, who scored her team’s second goal, and senior forward Whitney Horton, who will play at St. Thomas next season. She gave her team a 4-3 lead by outracing a pair of Hill-Murray defenders to score with 1.7 seconds remaining in the second period.
“We battled hard, but it just wasn’t our night,” Horton said.
