Neither the #1 Tomahawk Hatchets or #4 McFarland Spartans had ever won a game at the WIAA State High School Hockey Tournament. Tomahawk made trips in 1990 and 2024 and were bounced after their first game in both tournaments. McFarland did the same in 2000 as part of the McFarland/Oregon co-op.

So today something had to change at Bob Suter's Legacy20 Ice Arena in Middleton to open the state tournament. In the end it was the Hatchets who skated to a 3-2 win to advance.

It was the Steve Hoang show in the first period as the Hatchets outshot the Spartans 16-2 in the period. Hoang turned aside all shots though, including two breakaways by Jonah Dickens.

On the first Dickens picked off an outlet pass on a McFarland powerplay and went backhand-forehand but Hoang tracked it and made the save 4:12 into the first. The second Dickens breakaway came just 59 seconds later. Dickens used his superlative speed to go around the McFarland defense, this time he tried a shot instead of a deke, but Hoang was up to the task again.

McFarland showed more life in the second period holding the puck in the Tomahawk zone for the first few minutes of the period and drawing a penalty to get a power play at the 3:39 mark of the period. They used the advantage well and picked up the first goal of the game when Ty Paulios corralled the puck in the corner and hit Nolan Sturmer out front for the one-timer goal.

Tomahawk took another penalty at the mid-way point of the period giving McFarland another opportunity with the man advantage. 54 seconds into the power play Tomahawk's Jett Reilly and Dickens came down on a short handed two-on-zero. Reilly fed Dickens across the slot but again Hoang was up to the task to preserve the McFarland lead.

Tomahawk would tie the game at the 3:53 mark, finally cracking Hoang. Dickens carried the puck into the zone but lost the handle and picked it back up in the corner. He fired out front for a one timer by Reilly, but he missed it and followed the shot behind the net. Reilly wheeled around the net and hit Brayden Lamer in the high slot. Lamer walked in and rang the puck off both posts for the game tying goal.

Dickens would finally score himself with 45 seconds left in the period. Dickens took a pass at his blue line and raced into the zone one-on-one with his defenseman. Dickens cut inside and fired a low wrister back to the far side and beat Hoang to make it 2-1.

Tomahawk outshot McFarland 9-5 in the second period.

The Hatchets would make it 3-1 just 19 seconds into the third period on a power play. Brayden Lamer moved the puck across to brother Austin, who would wrist it in from the high slot off the post.

But the Spartans answered back just 36 seconds later. Callen Haas took a feed from Liam Reagan in the neutral zone. Haas entered the zone and fired a shot from the right faceoff dot and beat Tomahawk goalie Trevor Seliskar to make it a 3-2 game.

At the 5:24 mark of the third period stopped another breakaway attempt by Dickens. Austin Lamer hit him behind the defense with a long lead pass and Dickens raced in and put a shot on Hoang, but he was up to the task yet again.

McFarland took a timeout with 1:05 left on the clock and pulled Hoang for the extra attacker but they weren't able to generate another scoring opportunity and Tomahawk picked up their first win in state tournament history to move on to the championship game.

Trevor Seliskar had 9 saves in the win for the Hatchets. Steve Hoang had 31 saves in the loss for the Spartans, including four breakaways.