Lakeville South girls' hockey coach Perry Wilkinson led his squad to the state tournament for the second time in three seasons. He reflected on the year and the team's performance at state (Lakeville South went 1-2, losing in the consolation final):
• On how he views the season overall: It was a good season. It was successful, but not the way we wanted to finish. But the fact that all three games we played at state were one-goal games -- everyone knows it's one bounce either way and who knows what can happen. I don't think we played as well as we could have, but the teams we played did some things to us we couldn't handle. In the end you're disappointed because of what you thought you could have done, but for our program it was another good year and a good experience for our kids and community. It's something the kids should be proud of.
• On how the team's players view the season: It depends on who you ask. Some of our seniors and leaders were maybe disappointed. But collectively they thought we had a nice year. They looked at it as a whole. Two state tournaments in three years. When you make it to state, everyone is hot. Hill-Murray was playing great hockey. We had a tough draw, and we ended up playing three tough teams. But the state tournament doesn't define our year.
• On whether the program can sustain this level of success: That's going to be the thing. We graduate a heck of a lot of talent. We had the perfect mix of leaders and players. It's going to be hard to replace all that. In talking to our returning kids, we know it's not going to be easy, but if we keep the right mindset at the end of the year we should be a factor again in our section.
MICHAEL RAND
