Lumberjacks Take Down Knights

Kerry Rodd – NSO

A week ago the St. Michael-Albertville looked as if they could be the #2 seed in the Section 7AA boys hockey seedings. Following the seeding meeting the Knights were relegated to the 4th seed and on Thursday night they had to host Cloquet-Esko-Carlton the #5 seed. Instead of using what appeared to be a snub by section coaches to their advantage the Knights fell apart and looked as if they were more intent on inflicting injury on CEC than winning a hockey game. The end result? The Jacks scored 6 power play goals and won the game 9-4.

The Lumberjacks set the tone for the game when Koby Bender scored on the power play just 36 seconds in from Cole Litsey and Dylan Johnson. The Knights answered with a goal at 4:55 on the power play as well, but then CEC got a goal from Litsey that was assisted by Johnson at 5:12 and at 14:42 it was Ryan Schramm scoring unassisted for CEC making it 3-1 after one period.

The Knights came out strong to start the second period and cut the Jacks lead to 3-2 with a goal by Tucker Bjorlin just 1:30 into the period and they appeared to have CEC rocking back on their heels a bit. Dalton Johnson seemed to right the ship for CEC when he scored on a power play at 8:09 from Bender and Jack Kuhlman. From that point on things deteriorated for the Knights who had a melt down of epic proportions. First it was a power play goal by Kyle Klatt from Michael Sullivan Dylan Johnson at 10:58 and then it was Litsey from Kyle Klatt at 14:24. Both of those goals were power play goals. CEC led the game 6-2 entering the final period.

Flashback to a week ago the Knights handed CEC a 3-0 loss and entered the playoffs at 21-4 and were hosting a home playoff for the first time in school history. Instead of providing fans with what should have been an entertaining hockey game the Knights made the third period look like a circus. After Cody Reckard had cut the CEC lead to 6-3, and gave the Knights a little hope at the 2:40 mark of the third period, the problems really hit a high note once Bender had scored at 5:23 to push the lead to 7-3. That goal was followed by another Bender goal, this one on the power play at 5:55 from Kuhlman and Dalton Johnson as CEC went up 8-3. SMA answered back on a goal by Tyler Hayes, but CEC closed things out on another power play goal by Klatt from Litsey at 15:19.

The story of the game should have been the fact that CEC went on the road and notched a road playoff victory against a team that was 21-4 going into the game. Instead the story of the game was two-fold, first how the Knights reacted to playoff adversity and the second on how the Jacks kept the course and parlayed the continued penalties to secure the win.

How ridiculous did things become? At one point a Knights player slashed a CEC player across the throat with his stick and he was given a game misconduct. At another point a Knights player through his stick as Kyle Klatt tried to score on a break away, It also appeared as if the Knights got so frustrated about officiating that instead of trying to work through the issues they tried to take it out any way they could on CEC and that included throwing rules to the wind.

In the end the Jacks persevered and now will move on to play #1 seeded Elk River in the section semi finals at Amsoil Arena at noon on Saturday. The other semi final will feature Duluth East playing Grand Rapids.