His hockey team reeling, his own body battered, Eden Prairie junior Casey Mittelstadt rallied the Eagles to a 6-2 victory over Grand Rapids on Friday in the second Class 2A state tournament semifinal.
Grand Rapids erased a 2-0 deficit with goals only 11 seconds apart from Micah Miller and Alex Adams early in the second period. Then the Thunderhawks began asserting themselves physically, dropping Eagles players with huge hits.
Mittelstadt hit back, surging toward the net with great speed to score twice and complete a hat trick to restore a 4-2 lead for Eden Prairie (21-7-2). He returned to the bench each time to get a bag of ice placed on the back of his neck. He finished with five points.
Eden Prairie coach Lee Smith lauded Mittelstadt's "warrior effort."
"You talk about a kid taking over a game," Smith said. "When it was 2-2 he decided to crank it up a notch."
Smith went on to compare Mittelstadt to former Eden Prairie standout Kyle Rau, company that drew a smile.
"It's an honor," said Mittelstadt, who will follow Rau's path and play for the Gophers.
On his first goal of the second period, Mittelstadt corralled a loose puck along the wall and darted toward the net for a shorthanded goal. He later split a pair of defensemen and got the puck near the goal line. A Grand Rapids defenseman accidentally knocked the puck in.
Cole Lawrence added a goal with less than a minute left in the second period.
"It was a good response by our guys, but we weren't able to sustain it," Grand Rapids coach Trent Klatt said after the Thunderhawks fell to 22-7-1.
The victory sends No. 1 seed Eden Prairie to the championship game Saturday night. No. 3 seed Wayzata, a Lake Conference rival, waits. The teams split two games this season.
Eden Prairie previously won state championships in 2009 and 2011.