DULUTH — Hermantown earned the No. 1 seed in the Class A Minnesota Men's Hockey Tournament announced Saturday morning, but it wasn't an easy victory for the Hawks.
Unlike the chaotic Class AA field, there have been few upsets in the Class A section this season, with seven of the top nine teams in the season final Let's Play Hockey State Rankings advancing to the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul. Only 5 can be seeded.
Alexandria Area, one of the ranked unseeded teams, was tied with the Hawks in the state quarterfinals Wednesday at 6 p.m.
The Cardinals (18-9-1), winners of Section 6AA and ranked No. 9 in the state poll, will play Duluth Denfeld in Section 7 of the season, winning 3-2 on a late goal against Essentia Duluth. did. Feb. 3 at the Heritage Center. Hermantown and Denfeld, ranked No. 1 in the poll, tied 2-2 on Dec. 19, 2023 at the Heritage Center.
The Hawks defeated the Cardinals 7-1 in the semifinals of the 2022 tournament after Alexandria eliminated them in the same round in 2018.
Hermantown played three of the eight teams in this year's Class A field, defeating Mahtomedi and St. Cloud Cathedral and losing to Warlord. They also played against four teams in the AA field (Grand Rapids, White Bear Lake, Centennial, and Cretin-Durham Hall) and had 3 wins and 1 loss.
The winner of Wednesday's game between Hermantown and Alexandria will face either No. 5 Orono or No. 4 Mahatomedi in the state semifinals Friday at 1 p.m.
The other half of the A bracket is the tournament opener on Wednesday at 11 a.m., with second-seeded Warlords facing New Ulm, the only unranked team in the field. In the other quarterfinal, third-seeded St. Cloud Cathedral will face Northfield.
Rapids conclude Thursday's AA quarterfinals
In a Class AA field with more storylines than ranked teams, Grand Rapids will be right in the middle.
The Thunderhawks are given the No. 5 seed in the same bracket and will face No. 4 White Bear Lake Area in four of four state quarterfinal games starting Thursday night at 8 p.m. in St. Paul.
The pairing features a Thunderhawks program that has won four state championships, most recently in 2017, and White Bear Lake, which is infamous for losing all 18 of its state tournament quarterfinal appearances. Compete against.
However, the two teams met in Grand Rapids on January 19th, with White Bear Lake winning 2-0. The Rapids had a 32-17 advantage in shots on target, but were shut out by Bears goaltender Leo Gabriel, with goals from Dylan Butteau and Maverick Timmons.
The Thunderhawks' only loss was against Edina, a Class AA tournament team (6-2 on Dec. 14 in Edina), making the Hornets a potential opponent for Friday night's semifinals.
In contrast to the A field, only two teams (No. 3 Edina and No. 5 Chanhassen) finished in the top 10 of the state poll, as there were upsets in some sections and top teams overlapped in others. Proceeded to St. Paul. And three of them (Cretin-Durham Hall, Elk River/Zimmerman, Rochester Century/John Marshall) are not ranked at all.
The Rapids/WBL winner will face either top-seeded Edina or unseeded Elk River in the semifinals later Friday.
In the other half of the bracket, Chanhassen, which defeated undefeated Minnetonka to win Section 2AA, earns the No. 2 seed and opens Thursday's quarterfinals vs. Rochester Co-op, followed by No. 3 seed Centennial vs. Cretin. A battle is planned. -Durham Hall. With Friday night's win in the 4AA final, the Raiders denied St. Thomas Academy a berth to state and also denied Cadets coach Mike Randolph his record-breaking 708th career win.
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