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Chisago Lakes 6, River Lakes 1

Senior Brooke Klemz almost waited a little too long to get her first career hat trick.  She scored three goals to lead the Wildcat girls’ hockey team to a 6-1 win over the River Lakes Stars Tuesday, January 30 at Chisago Lakes Arena in the final regular season varsity home game for Klemz and her senior teammates Breanna Ritter and Aly Vogelsang.

Klemz scored twice in the first period to give the Wildcats a 2-0 lead.  On the first goal, she was assisted by Lexi Smothers and Vogelsang.  On the second goal, Ella Perreault and Allison Smothers picked up the assists.  Lauren Schmidt scored 47 seconds into the second period, assisted by Allison Smothers and Nora DeVries, to make the score 3-0.  Rivers Lakes scored three minutes later to cut the lead to two, but Klemz pushed the lead back to three with a goal to complete her hat trick midway through the period.  Playmaker Allison Smothers notched her third assist of the game on the Klemz goal.  Vogelsang scored late in the period to make it 5-1.  Lexi Smothers and DeVries got the assists.  DeVries scored the only goal of the third period, assisted by Perreault, to make the final score 6-1.

St. Paul/Two Rivers 5, Chisago Lakes 3

In the final regular season game for the Wildcats, the St. Paul/Two Rivers Riveters scored four straight goals and beat the Wildcats 5-3 on Friday, February 2 at West St. Paul Arena.

Nora DeVries opened the scoring for the Wildcats at 6:10 of the first period, assisted by Aly Vogelsang.  The Riveters scored twice later in the period to go up 2-1,  They added two more goals in the second period to take a 4-1 lead.  Ella Perreault scored a power play goal with one second left in the period, assisted by Allison Smothers, to cut the Riveter lead to 4-2.  Brooke Klemz put one in the back of the net at 7:01 of the third period to pull the Wildcats within one, with Vigelsang picking up her second assist of the game.  The Wildcats pushed hard to tie it and send the game into overtime, but the Riveters scored an insurance goal at 13:05 and skated out the last four minutes to win 5-3.  The Wildcats outshot the Riveters 39-30 for the game, including 18 shots in the second period.

Playoff Preview

It’s not a stretch to say that the third-seeded Wildcats (9-16-0) have a difficult path to get to the state tournament this year.  The  will open the Section 4A playoffs  with a quarterfinal home game against the sixth-seeded Visitation Blazers (3-22-0) this Saturday at 5 p.m. at Chisago Lakes Arena.  The Wildcats extinguished the Blazers 12-0 earlier this season, so they should have no problem beating the Blazers and moving on to the semifinals.

After that, the path gets considerably rockier.  Assuming they beat the Blazers, the Wildcats will head to Doug Woog Arena on Tuesday, February 13 at 7 p.m. to take on the second-seeded South St. Paul Packers (16-9-0), who are ranked tenth in the state in Class A.  In order to spring the upset, the Wildcats will need multiple players to step up and play their best game of the season, including whichever goaltender starts the game.

With a win, the Wildcats would advance to the section championship game, which – barring a major upset – will be against the top-ranked team in Class A in the state, the Holy Angels Stars (19-3-3)   The Stars’ only losses this season came against Orono, ranked second in Class A, Benilde-St. Margaret’s, ranked fifth in Class AA; and Hill-Murray, ranked second in Class AA.  That game will be played Thursday, February 15 at 7 p.m. at Richfield Ice Arena.

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