Playing with a chip on its shoulder, the Dodge County boys hockey team continues to roll.
Brody Lamb continued his torrid state tournament with a hat trick, and the Wildcats beat Little Falls 4-1 in a Class 1A semifinal game Friday at Xcel Energy Center.
Dodge County (19-3-1) moves into Saturday’s 6 p.m. final to face No. 2 Gentry Academy . The undefeated Stars (18-0) rallied to beat East Grand Forks 5-3 in Friday’s other semifinal.
“It’s been a dream forever, so to actually have it happen is kind of surreal,” Lamb said.
Dodge County was not a top-five see in the tournament — the final three teams get randomly placed in the eight-team bracket — so they enter the championship game as a decided underdog, a slight that continues to fuel the squad. The Wildcats beat top-seeded Hermantown 7-3 in the quarterfinals, although COVID-19 forced the Hawks to use many junior varsity players.
“We’ve known since they were Peewees and Bantams how good of hockey players we have,” Dodge County coach Nick Worden said of his team. “(Gentry Academy) is super-skilled, but we can work just as hard as them. If we get our chances, we can score goals too.”
Little Falls was seeking a dose of revenge; it was beaten 3-2 by Dodge County on March 5.
“Besides winning the game and maybe scoring a couple of goals, I couldn’t ask for a better effort from our team,” said Little Falls coach Tony Couture, who coached the final game of a 28-year run leading the Flyers.
George Moore, who netted the winner in Little Falls’ 2-1 quarterfinal win over Delano, scored with 19.7 seconds left in the opening period for a 1-0 lead.
“The first 7 1/2 minutes we were going hard and I don’t think they hardly got out of the zone, and we created a lot of good opportunities,” Worden said. “Then it just flipped. We were running, chasing everywhere and super uncharacteristic of how we play.”
Charlie Blaisdell tied the score midway through the second period before Lamb did his thing 4 minutes later. Off the draw, his shot from the left circle went through traffic and found the top corner of the Little Falls net.
The junior added some security with 5 minutes left in the game on a beautiful give and go with Gavin Giesler that saw Lamb circle around a defender, go backhand to forehand and stuff the puck behind Flyers goalie Dane Couture for the Wildcats’ third goal. He added an empty-net tally.
Lamb, a University of Minnesota recruit, has nine goals in two tournament games and 17 in five playoff games going back to the sectionals. He has 51 goals for the season.
“Their game plan was to take him away, and they did a pretty good job of it for the most part,” Worden said. “But I was really proud of his two linemates. I thought (Giesler) did an awesome job, and it was unreal watching Matt Donovan back-check today.”
For fans of fourth-seeded Little Falls (14-5-1) there was plenty of disgust to be had with the officials. And those fans let it be known with some vociferous insults toward the men in stripes.
Two Flyers goals were waved off, one for apparent goaltender interference in the first period and the other with 10 minutes to go that would have tied the score when there was a quick whistle after an official thought the puck was covered. Television replays showed otherwise on the latter.
“I was told they were making the decision up top. That was it,” Couture said. “That was a disappointment that they didn’t really tell us why. But if we would have found the back of the net more, we wouldn’t have had to deal with the disappointment of the calls.”
“I’ll chalk that up to the seedings, how about?” Worden said. “We got screwed over in the seedings, and that’s our payback.”
The Link LonkApril 03, 2021 at 06:09AM
https://www.twincities.com/2021/04/02/class-a-boys-hockey-semifinal-dodge-county-4-little-falls-1/
Class A boys hockey semifinal: Dodge County 4, Little Falls 1 - TwinCities.com-Pioneer Press
https://news.google.com/search?q=little&hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US:en
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