The boys' hockey state semifinals took over the Xcel Energy Center on Friday with the Class 1A games in the afternoon and Class 2A in the evening. Here are the game reports.
CLASS 2A
Eden Prairie 6, Maple Grove 5 (OT)
Eden Prairie's Carter Batchelder scored with 1:02 left in overtime to complete a hat trick and put the Eagles into the Class 2A state championship game.
They face unbeaten Lakeville South at 8 p.m. Saturday at the Xcel Energy Center. No. 1 seed Eden Prairie (20-1-2) has lost the past two championship games.
Three goals in a 21-second span of the third period tied the game 5-5 late in regulation on Friday.
Before that flurry, Maple Grove scored just 25 seconds into the third period with a goal off Chris Kernan's skate for a 3-2 lead.
More on the game and a box score, tap here.
Lakeville South 5, Wayzata 3
Senior forward Cade Ahrenholz scored twice in the third period as No. 3 seed Lakeville South rallied to defeat unseeded Wayzata 5-3 in a Class 2A semifinal Friday.
Ahrenholz tied it at 2-2 with 10:36 left in the third period before putting the Cougars (20-0-2) ahead 3-2 with 5:16 left when he calmly scored from the high slot. The lead was Lakeville South's first of the game.
Lakeville South is trying to become the first undefeated state champion since Lakeville North went 31-0 in 2015.
More on the game and a box score, tap here.
CLASS 1A
Dodge County 4, Little Falls 1
Talk about a magnificent seven.
Dodge County junior forward Brody Lamb, who wears No. 7 on his back, put his team there as well. He tallied a hat trick — his seventh this season — as the Wildcats defeated Little Falls 4-1 in a Class 1A tournament semifinal.
Lamb, the state's top scorer, padded his lead with goals 49, 50 and 51, sending first-time state tournament entrant Dodge County to Saturday's championship game. The Wildcats (19-3-1) face No. 2 seed Gentry Academy (18-0) at 6 p.m.
"I didn't really think, honestly, that we would make it this far," Lamb said. "But anything can happen. It's going to be fun."
More on the game and the box score, tap here
Gentry Academy 5, East Grand Forks 3
A little levity is never a bad thing. Especially for a team staring down adversity — and potentially a loss — for the first time.
Barrett Hall's laughter-inducing attempt at a between-the-legs shot in the third period Friday just might have been the play of the game for Gentry Academy. The effort seemed to cut the tension on the Stars' bench and free up the state's only unbeaten, untied team to rally to defeat East Grand Forks what was by far its most competitive game of the season.
"I didn't even mean to try to do that, the puck just hit off my back foot and I tried to get my stick on it," Hall said about his trick-shot misfire after he scored twice in Gentry Academy's 5-3 victory over East Grand Forks in a Class 1A semifinal at Xcel Energy Center.
More on the game and the box score, tap here
More on the tournament:
Two-Man Advantage tournament blog
Community hockey alive and well in small-town Minnesota
Hill-Murray and Wayzata: What happened on the day their match-up didn't happen?
Zam and Lamb: Game respects game
State tournament brackets and section results
Maple Grove's Kyle Kukkonen is the Metro Player of the Year
Meet the All-Metro boys' hockey team
Preps Insider podcast: The scariest team to watch for at state
Final Top 10 rankings from Let's Play Hockey
