With two days in the books, the Tier 1 Central District tournament picture is getting clearer. The team Wisconsin U16 Girls, U14 Boys, and U16 Boys are all unbeaten heading into Sunday's final games. Each tournament is a straight round-robin format, so every game is important.

At the U16 Girls level, there are only three teams, representing Illinois, Wisconsin, and Missouri. Team Wisconsin beat Missouri 3-1 on Friday night. Illinois beat Missouri on Saturday, setting up a de facto championship game between Wisconsin and Illinois on Sunday morning.

In the U14 Boys (Bantam) division, there was much excitement. Team Wisconsin beat the Midwest representative 4-3 on Friday night, and had to go into a shootout against the St. Louis Jr. Blues from Missouri on Saturday. The teams tied at 2-2 in regulation and played one scoreless five minute overtime period. That was followed by a 5-player shootout. Brett Gruber from Appleton and Matt Berkovitz of Ashwaubenon scored for TW, but the Blues were able to tie it up against TW goalie Ryan Wischow, also from Ashwaubenon.  This sent the game to a sudden-death shootout. The Blues were able to score twice in the next 8 shooters, but each time they scored, TW answered with goals from Gruber again and Ashwaubenon’s Mason Appleton. Finally, after Wischow stopped the 14th Blues shooter, Classic 8 Conference Player of the Year, Zed Dietrich went top shelf to seal the win for TW.

Even though he was happy that the shootout ended in his team’s favor, Team Wisconsin General Manager Mike Conner said he doesn’t really like using a shootout to determine who advances in these tournament games. “It’s not real hockey”, said Conner. “It doesn’t really tell you who had the better team.” But he is pleased with the newly formed U14 team. “It was way overdue, and has been very well received. It really helps with our main goal of allowing kids to play at this level, and still get the high school atmosphere, with the crowds and the cheerleaders and the community support they get for their local team.”

The Midget Minor team (U16 boys) beat Missouri 5-2 on Friday night, and had a relatively easy game in dispatching Midwest representative Russell Stover of Kansas on Saturday (insert your own cream-filled chocolate joke here). Chris Nell of Notre Dame and Nick Deery of West Salem handled the goaltending duties in the two games.

The Midget Majors (U18 boys) have had a tough time scoring in this tournament. Pre-season leading scorer Brad Navin is still out with a knee injury suffered in January, and the goals have just not come easy. TW lost to the Chicago Mission 4-1 on Friday night, and got shut-out by the Jr. Blues 3-0 on Saturday. Saturday’s game was a tough defensive battle, and the scoreless first period actually ended with Notre Dame’s Austin Vieth getting stuffed on a penalty shot with no time on the clock. The Blues scored on the WHCA Player of the Year, Saxton Soley in the second period on a 5-3 power-play. They picked up an insurance goal with about five minutes left in the third period, then added an empty net goal to close out the scoring.

With the two losses, the Midget Majors are out of contention, but each of the other three TW’s is very much alive heading into Sunday’s action.