St. Croix squads have good night

Regardless of what happened in the section finals, Feb. 25 was a huge night in boys' hockey for the two teams that call the St. Croix Rec Center home.

Stillwater avenged a pair of regular-season losses to White Bear Lake, defeating the Bears 2-1 on Jackson Cates' goal at 3:10 of overtime to advance to the Class 2A, Section 4 championship game against Hill-Murray.

The Ponies last played the section finals in 2009 but have never advanced to the state tournament.

Mahtomedi also needed extra time to oust No. 3-seeded St. Paul Academy in the Class 1A, Section 4 semifinals. The game-winner came at 3:49 of the second overtime on a shot by sophomore Tim Kuivinen off a faceoff.

The Zephyrs have lost in the section semifinals the past three years, twice to Totino-Grace, their opponent in Friday's section final.

East Ridge put 12 in state swim meet

The East Ridge boys' swimming team recently completed its second consecutive undefeated season in the Suburban East Conference.

The Raptors finished second in the Class 2A, Section 4 meet, behind Stillwater, and sent 12 entrants to the recently completed state meet. They could have had even more except for a disqualification in the 200 freestyle relay.

The team of Kent Rabideaux, Sam Scholz, Ryan Schiferl and Garrett Verhoeven would have won the event in a time of 1:28.36 but the relay was disqualified when one of the swimmers was judged to have left the block early.

Jim Paulsen