Cloquet Bantams To Face Woodbury At State

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Mar 11

Kerry Rodd-NSO

It took a whole lot of hard work, but the Cloquet Bantam A boys hockey team finally grabbed an elusive spot in the Minnesota State Bantam Hockey Tournament. Making the achievement even more special was the fact that many of these same players also played on the Pee Wee A team, which advanced a couple of years ago to that state tournament.

It was a long row to hoe for the Cloquet squad as they started play weeks ago in the District 11 tournament. Cloquet was seeded #2 in the tournament behind Duluth East, while Hermantown was #3, the Duluth Lakers were #4 and Proctor was #5. In order to advance to the Regional Tournament, which was held in Proctor, teams needed to finish in the top 3 in their district, which also include two teams from District 12. Cloquet picked up wins over the Duluth Lakers and Proctor to advance to the regionals along with Duluth East and Hermantown.

The region tournament saw East named as the #1 seed in the Red Division with White Bear Lake the #2 seed from District 2, Hibbing the #2 seed from District 12 and Cloquet the #3 seed from District 11. The Blue Division #1 seed was Mounds View out of District 2; the #2 seed was Hermantown from District 11, Grand Rapids the #1 seed from District 12 and North St. Paul the #3 seed from District 2.

In pool play on Friday Cloquet started with a 6-3 win over Hibbing, followed by a 2-1 overtime victory over White Bear Lake. Saturday’s pool play action saw Duluth East beat Cloquet 8-0, but when the pool play ended Cloquet ended up with the #2 seed behind Duluth East in the Red Division. The #1 seed in the Blue Division was Mounds View and Grand Rapids received the #2 seed.

Once the teams were re-seeded after pool play Cloquet had to play Mounds View. The Jacks came away with a 6-1 win over the Mustangs, while Grand Rapids upset Duluth East 2-1. Because of their wins, Cloquet and Grand Rapids were allotted the two slots for the state tournament to represent the North Region. Other teams in the state tournament will be Osseo, Wayzata, Burnsville, Woodbury, East Grand Forks and Elk River.

The state tournament will be held in Richfield starting on Friday, March 19th with Cloquet squaring off against Woodbury at 3:30pm.

Players on the Cloquet Bantam A roster are Wyatt Begay, Dalton Johnson, Jared Shevich, Eric Peterson, Westin Michaud, Nate Niemi, Sean Kedrwoski, Tanner Robideaux, Beau Michaud, Tanner Fritsinger, Ryan Holte, Aaron Peterson, Karson Kuhlman, Ryan Lind, Traz Collelo, James Newgren, Coleman Zywicki and Justin Ketola.

Kerry Rodd can be reached at Kerry@northlandsportsonline.com

Chris Shevich-NSO