Daily Dish 5.11
A relatively slow night on the boys side last night from the standpoint of big games with implications, but, there were a couple interesting ones:
TriMac 10 v Blake 4: TriMac is putting together a nice season for themselves. A team that was 3-10 two seasons ago, and 8-7 last year, are now 6-1 and just became the first team to win the IMAC conference, other than Blake… ever! Joey Stolpestad is a machine and has notched 37 goals this year (plus whatever he got last night) and is a great player in the state that won’t get any attention. So, tip of the cap to the Blackhawks and Joey for their accomplishment and the awesome season they have been having
Blaine 11 v Totino-Grace 8: All we have been talking about is Totino Grace’s goal scoring frenzy this year. But, Coach Johnson’s bengals were able to slow them down last night and come away with a big conference win! Both of these teams are middle of the pack, on the radar, but this was a big win for Blaine heading into the second half of the year. Blaine is slowly developing and improving. Totino will need to get back to the drawing board because they have big games with Centennial and Rogers coming up.
Maple Grove 13 v Armstrong 8: This game basically decided the NWSC (unless something crazy happens) and Maple Grove continuing to prove they are the real deal. Armstrong is right there and has a good team, but, they are showing they do need to tidy some things up against better teams. If they can lock in the defense a little bit, they should be pretty competitive in playoffs. We may see a rematch here in section 5 because the assumption is that MG will be the 2 and RA will be the 3. So, could be a really fun game on tap in a few weeks
Centennial 8 v Champlin 7: This game was way closer than I thought it would be. Centennial has certainly dropped a bit from the past few years, but, they are finding ways to win. They have played a lot of close games which will benefit them come playoffs. Champlin is a team that also has played a ton of close games. They are 4-5 this year but last year they were 5-10. So, I assume they will be able to improve on their record from last year and are trending in the right direction.
