Almost one year to the day, the Northfield girls hockey team were forced to stand at the blue line and watch the Lakeville North Panthers hoist up the Section 1AA championship and squash the Raiders’ hopes of becoming back-to-back champs.
The Raiders responded in the best way possible, hitting the ice for the 2023-24 season and becoming one of the top girls high school hockey teams in all of Minnesota.
A top 10 state ranking, a 24-1 regular season record, an 18-0 quarterfinals shutout of Austin and a semifinals overtime winner against Owatonna put them right back on the ice inside the Four Seasons Centre in Owatonna for their third consecutive Section 1AA championship game appearance.
Behind a series of second-period goals, some late adversity and an even later game-winning goal, the No. 1 seeded Northfield Raiders successfully punched their ticket back to the Class AA state tournament with a 4-3 victory over No. 2 Lakeville South to bring home another 1AA championship.
“It’s pretty exciting,” said senior forward and game-winning goal scorer Emerson Garlie. “We knew we had something to prove as we had such a great season and people kind of thought we were frauds, so it was good to prove.”
“I think it was hard losing last year, so we come back with a lot of energy wanting to get back to the X,” senior forward Ayla Puppe added.
Northfield was certainly no stranger to the opponent that shared the ice Thursday. The Raiders and the Cougars, one way or another, have had an extensive history in the section tournament.
The Raiders beat then-No. 1 seeded Lakeville South 5-2 as the No. 4 seed to reach the 2022-23 championship game; they beat an also No. 1 seeded South team in overtime as the No. 2 seed in the Raiders' last trip to state during the 2021-22 championship game; and they endured a 3-1 loss to No. 2 South as the No. 3 seed during the 2020-21 section semifinals.
So there’s no doubt that the Class AA No. 12 ranked Cougars were already familiar with Northfield and did their homework, scouting the Class AA No. 8 ranked Raiders going into another section playoff matchup.
Part of South’s game plan was to try to quiet star senior forward and Minnesota commit Ayla Puppe. The Cougars didn’t want to risk Puppe — who entered with 59 goals and 107 points on the season — coming close to the puck. When she did, two Cougars were immediately there, no matter the cost.
Where the Cougars couldn’t afford to zero in on Puppe was during Northfield power plays, and that proved to be costly.
Puppe managed to draw an early tripping call in the second period, and thanks to an assist from sophomore Mia Miller, found an opening to capitalize on the power play for the first goal of the game.
Northfield got another chance on the power play with just 2:27 remaining in the period, and it didn’t take long for Puppe to rifle a shot past a defender for her second power play goal of the game.
“We’re going to look back on the third and have some regrets on how we handled it, but you can’t regret going as offensive as we did,” said Northfield head coach Paige Haley. “We kind of told Ayla before the game that’s what she was going to see. She knew it and I thought she adapted well.”
The beautiful part about hockey is that sometimes goal scoring can come from somewhere you’re not expecting, and just three minutes after Puppe’s first goal, freshman defender Lily Jindra found the puck in front of the net from sophomore Ashlyn Paukert and buried her shot past South’s goaltender to help the Raiders take firm control at 3-0, still in the second period.
But one thing that can always help determine the difference between the great teams and the good teams is how the team can handle adversity. Northfield was put to that test in the third.
South managed to score early in the third to pull it within two goals, then scored again with just under six minutes to bring it within a goal, and on the Cougars sixth power play chance, they scored with two seconds left in the extra skater advantage to tie the game up.
Just when you think the momentum was going to heavily favor the Cougars, the game inching toward overtime, senior forward Emerson Garlie found the puck laying in front of South’s goal and chipped in the game-winning goal that’s sending Northfield back to the Class AA state tournament.
“Ayla just threw it out front and I just happened to be there,” Garlie said on her game-winning goal. “I wasn’t really looking, but it happened to go into the back of the net and it was fun to celebrate with our team.”
Puppe finished the game with three points behind her two power play goals and an assist on Garlie’s goal. Miller finished with assists on both power play goals for two points. Garlie and Jindra both recorded a goal, along with an assist from Paukert, for a point each.
Junior goaltender Macy Mueller recorded 31 saves on 34 shots by South for a .912 save percentage while helping Northfield limit the Cougars to one power play goal on six total chances.
Northfield is heading back to the Xcel Energy Center, and the Raiders feel that they have something to prove after their last trip to the state tournament in 2021-22.
They had beaten the Cougars in overtime to reach the state tournament, but the state run came to a quick end with a 7-0 shutout loss to third-place Edina in the quarterfinals and a 2-1 loss to consolation champs Metro-South during the consolation semifinals.
Northfield’s deep senior and junior core were only freshmen and sophomores at that point, and now the Raiders look to be one of the top teams in the entire state. That’s exactly what they want to prove when they step onto the ice inside the X.
“It’s really exciting (returning to state),” Puppe said. “Going our sophomore year, you get a little taste of it, but I think we’re going back with a lot of energy.”
The Class AA (largest class in girls hockey) state tournament runs from Feb. 22-24. Seeding and matchups for the first round will be announced sometime before.
Most Popular
Comments / 0