One early goal then great defense and goaltending was just what the University School boys’ hockey team needed to salvage a win from their trip to Blaine, Minnesota, where the Wildcats played three games in the Herb Brooks Holiday Classic Tournament.  It all fell in place on Saturday, December 28th, allowing the Wildcats to beat Minneapolis High School 1-0 and take 7th place in the Gold Division of the tournament at the National Sports Center in Blaine.

“We were a tired and beat up team that found a way to win against a big, strong, and physical team in Minneapolis,” said Jason Woods, USM’s head coach. “I’m proud of the battle these guys showed today. Noah Eghbali got the early goal, Patrick Kelly played great in net, and our team defense was excellent. This tournament was another building block in our effort to get better.”

The Minneapolitans gave the Wisconsinites all they could handle.  Minneapolis outshot the Wildcats 30-23 in the contest, but Kelly, USM’s goaltender, earned a shutout by turning every shot away.  Kelly’s counterpart, Alex Lamont, stopped 22 of USM’s shots, but the first one he did not.

After a Minneapolis shot, Eghbali snared the puck in the USM zone.  As he exited, he veered to the left.  Entering the Minneapolis end, Eghbali avoided a body check by one defenseman and skated in further.  From the left circle, he fired a shot.  The puck eluded Lamont and trickled across the goal line just 43 seconds into the game.

That was it for the scoring, although the action stayed intense as the play moved back and forth.  The Wildcats had four power play chances, including one for 5 minutes, but they could not score on any.  They also killed all three of Minneapolis’s power plays.

As would be expected in a 1-0 game, the tension increased as the minutes diminished.  Both teams tried, but neither team could score another goal.  As a result, the Wildcats got on the bus and made it back to Milwaukee with a victory.

After the game, one of USM’s captains, Tyler Herzberg summed things up, “Today, everyone came out ready to play and found a groove early to start things off. We scored in the first period and just knew we needed to play solid defense, which we did. It started to get tense at the end of the game as always in a tight game like ours, but we powered through. Always good to get a win to come home with.”

USM is now 6-2-1.  The Wildcats return to Wisconsin, where they will play St. Mary’s Springs of Fond du Lac in a non-conference game at 7:00 p.m. on Saturday, January 4th at USM.