The #3 Hayward Hurricanes and #1 Central Wisconsin Storm traveled to Don Fanetti Community Center at the Dunn County Recreation Park on Saturday afternoon for their girls sectional final to determine which of them would be heading to Madison for the State Tournament.

And as so many sectional finals have this season, this one required extra time to find a winner. Ultimately, the defending state champion Storm pulled out a 2-1 win in the extra frame to earn the chance to defend their title.

The Storm were the better team through the first period in Menomonie, generally holding the puck in the Hayward zone and not letting the Canes get any kind of offensive momentum, but it was the Canes who had the best scoring chance in the period.

Late in the period, the venerable Reese Sheehan danced around the Storm defense and raced down the left side of the ice, but she wound up hitting the crossbar and the first period ended with no goals on the board for either team. The Storm outshot the Canes 13-5 in the period.

The second period was more even, with the shot totals narrowing, before the Storm finally got on the board at the 6:52 mark on a one-timer goal by Jayden Yirkovsky in the slot. Taylor Freidel his Gabi Heuser along the left boards, and Heuser say Yirkovsky all alone in the slot and slide the pass over where Yirkovsky one-timed it in just inside the glove-hand corner to make it 1-0.

Hayward came alive later in the period on the power play, and tied the score when Savannah Harris hit Reese Duncan to make it 1-1 after two periods. The Storm outshot Hayward 11-7 in the second period.

The third period was a bit of a slog as both teams clamped down defensively and didn't take any chances on offense that might have opened them up to a counter attack. Each team took just 4 shots in the third period.

The Canes' biggest chance of the third game on a five-on-three power play that lasted 1:51 as the two Storm penalties came just nine seconds apart, but the Storm were able to kill it off, and entered the overtime period with 1:39 of power play time of their own.

They used that time to their advantage, and peppered Makenna Hutchison with a shot and two rebounds, the second of which Heuser put in to make give the Storm the 2-1 win. Sophie Bohlin took the initial shot for the Storm.

Cami Flohr stopped 15 of 16 shots in the win for the Storm. Hutchinson stopped 30 of 32 for the Hurricanes in the loss.