Hawks Finish Up Regular Season A Perfect 25-0

Wes Vork-NSO

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Feb 17, 2012

Wes Vork-NSO

One goal achieved and hopefully still more to come for the Hermantown Hawks boys hockey team. On Friday night the Hawks picked up a 4-0 shut-out victory over Hibbing/Chisholm to wrap up the first perfect 25-0 regular season in the history of the storied program.

“I’m happy for the kids to get something like this (perfect regular season), commented Hermantown Head Coach Bruce Plante after the game. “They’ve been very good about how they have handled all of it, just very mature with great leadership; they’ve had a lot of fun.”

During the state championship season of 2006-2007, the Hawks did record two ties to finish up 29-0-2, but still remain unbeaten, a mark that has not been repeated since. “It feels great,” explained Senior Captain Jared Kolquist. “There are a lot of guys in the locker room that are committed to a team goal; one of our goals was to work as hard as we could and it’s nice to cap that off with an undefeated season and hopefully we go into the playoffs on a roll,” Kolquist added.

The Hawks have steam rolled through the regular season by using strong special teams play, solid scoring up and down the line up, tough defensive play and good goaltending. On Friday night all of the above was on display as Matt Mensinger made 27 saves to get the shutout.

“What I really like about the way we’re playing now is our defense,” mentioned Coach Plante. “Not only our defensemen, but our team defense. Our forwards are back-checking hard, they’re fore-checking hard, they’re picking up checks in the neutral zone and our goalie has been excellent,” explained Plante.

Jared Thomas gave Hermantown the lead at 2:14 of the first period with Chris Benson and Andrew Mattson. The score stayed 1-0 in favor of Hermantown after one period.

Jared Kolquist took just eight seconds into the second period to make it 2-0 with an assist to Thomas. With only 38 seconds remaining in the period it was Paul Harrold scoring with Mike Robertson adding the assist to push the score to 3-0 in the Hawks favor after two periods.

Hermantown’s final goal came at 12:37 of the third period from Brian LeBlanc with assists to Jake Zeleznikar and Kolquist.

The Hawks pumped 37 shots on the Blue Jacket net, while Mensinger recorded 27 saves to get the Hawks fourth straight shutout and pick up the home win at Hermantown Arena. “As a team, to get all 25 wins in a season feels really good. I definitely will remember this forever, but I really do want to give a lot of credit to our defenseman. They make the other teams take a lot of bad shots and make me look good,” commented Mensinger after the game.

Each year the section finals alternate between North and South with this year’s event scheduled at the Heritage Center in Duluth. Should the Hawks be fortunate enough to make it through it would be short road trip.

“It is nice to have it close to home because high school kids don’t always travel well. But we switch it up every year and two years ago they changed it to where the high seed gets a home game in the Semi-Finals,” explained Plante. “We’re excited, but the 25-0 is behind us and means nothing now, the kids know the situation, every game is a game within itself and each nigh you have to be ready to play. If we get the luck and play well we could make it to state again.”

Kolquist, who as a senior has been a part of several playoff runs like the possibility of less travel also. “It is much easier for the community to get there as opposed to Champlain Park or whatever (the site of last year’s finals) so the fan support should be great if we are fortunate enough to get to that point.”

Mensinger agreed. “I’d much rather play here if we are fortunate enough to get to the section finals. You get those “bus legs” and sometimes start a little slow; so it’s nice to be close to home.”

Hermantown will open playoff action on Thursday at home against the winner of the Mora-Hinckley-Finlayson versus Moose Lake Area winner as those two teams will play on Tuesday in Mora.

Wes Vork can be reached at wes@northlandsportsonline.com