The game clock at Bob Suter’s Legacy20 Arena ticked under five minutes, but for the Eau Claire Area Stars it felt more like midnight. The Cinderella Stars had beat this clock throughout the playoffs, but were facing it one more time. Despite fifty-plus shots on goal, the Central Wisconsin Storm still hadn’t put the pesky Stars away as they flirted with the ever dangerous two goal lead at 3-1.

But this was the post-season, never-say-die, cardiac kid version of the ECA Stars and overtime was their middle name. Then as if they were reading from a script Molly Wright and April Vocke scored two minutes and thirteen seconds apart and tied the game at 3-3. With 2:40 to play the Stars were positioned to head for their ninth overtime.  

The second shift change of overtime, the clock struck midnight, when the Storm found an unlikely hero in forward Mara Meverden who drove the net hard, and backhanded a loose puck past Amy Thul to propel the Storm to an electric 4-3 win. It was Meverden’s second goal of the season and sixth of her career for the DC Everest junior.

Storm captain Ava Rode couldn’t have been happier for her teammate. “Mara is one of those players who shows up everyday and is loved by everyone in the lockeroom,” said Rode, the Molly Engstrom Award winner. “It’s great to see her hard work pay off in such a rewarding way.”

“We battled hard and I couldn't be prouder of how our players went the distance and found a way to force their way back into the game and extend it into overtime,” Stars Head Coach Bob Stow said. “It was the team chemistry and work ethic that allowed us to be in the position we created.”

It was a heartbreaking loss for the Stars and especially for senior Amy Thul who had fifty-two saves. Thul is just one of twelve seniors on the veteran Stars roster.

What looked like a mismatch on paper started quickly as the teams exchanged goals twenty seconds apart in the first period. Captain Addison Gruhlke wired a shot over Storm goalie Cami Flohr’s glove to give ECA a very short lived 1-0 lead. The powerplay goal was Gruhlke’s sixteenth. Emma Brandt converted a rebound from the crease for CWS and the game was tied 1-1.

Isabelle Janke gave the Storm their first lead of the game at 14:30 when she pounded a loose puck past Thul for a powerplay goal and a 2-1 lead. It was Janke’s second of the playoffs and third of the season. CWS peppered Thul with fifteen shots in the period, while Flohr saw just the one shot.

A dominate second period by the Storm saw Thul turn away twenty-four shots, and still extend their lead to 3-1. With the Storm shorthanded, Madeline Kelter used her speed to get free coming across the Stars blue line and fired a picture-perfect shot past Thul’s blocker and under the crossbar to put her team up 3-1.

The two teams took fifteen trips to the penalty box, but the powerplays would finish just two for fifteen, with each team capitalizing once. Early in the second period ECA took their fifth penalty, while the Storm had only been tagged once. The Stars finished with nine infractions and the Storm five. “This was a tough, hard-fought game that was difficult to build any flow due to the officiating,” said a diplomatic Stow.

At times the Stars looked simply over-matched, but Thul continued to shine keeping the Stars hopes alive. ECA’s Molly Wright was a ball of fire all game long for the Stars and she got rewarded with a breakaway that she converted into a goal with 4:43 to play. April Vocke’s shot from the blue line found its way through traffic and past Flohr two minutes later and we were tied 3-3. Wright had another breakaway and chance to put ECA ahead with ten seconds remaining. She went to the same move, and had Flohr beat again, but when she tried to tuck it in, she hit the post.

Call it a game of inches or the goalie’s best friend, but Wright’s puck stopped square on the pipe of Flohr’s net and the improbable ECA comeback died there too. Just a sophomore, Wright is a player to watch in the future. It was an uneven night for the Flohr, only a freshman, who finished the night with eight saves.

The stage was set for overtime, where the Stars had shined brilliantly. Meverden stole a page from the Stars playbook with the kind of hard-working goal you get from those role players outside the limelight of the team. On a night when the Storm’s big guns were quiet, Mara Meverden, Emma Brandt and Isabelle Janke, who scored a combined thirteen goals all year, stepped up and led their team back to the championship and a chance to win their third title in four years.

“Congrats to a very skilled Storm squad that helped set up an epic night of hockey,” Stow added.

The two top teams in the state, The Storm (23-5) and the Ice Bears (26-1) have been on a collision course since the puck dropped back in November. And on Saturday afternoon, state hockey fans will get the marque match-up of the state’s two top ranked teams.

You couldn’t ask for much more than that.