Kenai Central, Soldotna advance to state hockey semis

The Kenai Central and Soldotna hockey teams won Thursday to advance to the semifinals of the Division II state hockey tournament at the Soldotna Regional Sports Complex in Soldotna.

The Kardinals, the No. 5 seed, defeated No. 4 Juneau-Douglas: Yadaa.at Kale 4-2 while the No. 3 Stars pulled off a 4-2 victory over No. 5 North Pole.

In the Friday semifinals, Kenai (12-9-1) faces top-seeded Houston (19-3-1) at 4 p.m. The Kards lost to the Hawks 5-1 in their first game of the season Oct. 26. Also, SoHi (11-6) faces off with No. 2 Palmer (17-7-1) at 6:30 p.m. The teams split a pair of contests this season.

In the fourth-place bracket, Tri-Valley and Juneau play at 11 a.m., while North Pole and Kodiak play at 1:30 p.m.

Kenai 4, Juneau 2

The Kardinals won in the first round of a state tournament for the first time in program history.

No Kenai Peninsula team has ever won in the first round of the Division I state tournament. For the 2019 state tourney, peninsula squads Kenai, SoHi and Homer were reclassified into Division II.

After not making state in 2019, Scott Shelden took over as head coach for the 2019-2020 season and made state his first four years but lost in the first round every time, including last season to the Crimson Bears.

Thursday, the Kards finally broke through.

“I remember all the times we lost in state first round, the heartbreak and having to say goodbye to the seniors,” Kenai junior Avery Martin said. “But this is huge. And we lost to Juneau last year. So this is big for us.”

The Kardinals had won six of eight coming into the game, but the two losses were 7-3 decisions to Juneau.

Kenai’s top line of Martin, Logan Mese and Will Howard came out and created great chances, but Juneau goalie Mason Sooter was up to the task. He finished with 31 saves, while Evyn Witt stopped 24 for Kenai.

“I was telling our guys, the way Mason was playing today, if he was allowed to cross the blue line, he was scoring six goals,” Juneau head coach Matt Boline said. “He was incredible.”

With 4:35 left in the second period, the Crimson Bears took a 1-0 lead when Caden Johns scored on assists from Elliot Welch and Harris Monsef.

Shelden said it was a place in the game where Kenai could have gotten frustrated and gone away from the plan.

“We went down early and nobody panicked,” he said. “We had a lot of confidence and we scored a couple after that.”

Kenai scored twice in the final 3:20 of the second period to take a 2-1 lead. On the first goal, Mese set up Braden Smith, with Martin also getting an assist. On the second, Mese set up Martin, with Howard also assisting.

Mese is a scoring machine for Kenai, but the two plays highlighted that he’s also always willing to make the right pass.

“Mese — he’s a team player and a goal scorer,” Martin said.

Just 35 seconds into the third period, Mese forced a turnover on the Juneau end and scored for a 3-1 lead.

It was Juneau’s turn to be resilient. Just nine seconds later, Johns had his second goal of the game, assisted by Dylan Sowa, to cut it to 3-2.

“That’s Caden Johns,” Boline said. “He’s a senior captain this year. I sing his praises everywhere I go.

“We talk about players playing a 200-foot game — end to end. But if I could do the quick math, I’d tell you that he plays every square inch of the ice.”

As good as Kenai’s first line is, it was going to take the second and third lines, plus stout defense and goaltending, to hold off a team as deep and fast in Juneau for the rest of the third period.

“I was nervous,” Shelden said. “I was expecting something bad to happen. But the team never faltered in that game.

“That might have been the difference.”

Sawyer Vann had an empty-net goal with 20 seconds left to seal up the win.

Martin and Johns were named the players of the game.

Soldotna 4, North Pole 2

The Stars began their state title defense by holding off the Patriots.

Despite killing off seven power plays to one for North Pole, SoHi outshot North Pole 38-21. But an excellent performance from Patriots goalie Daniel Rady, who had 34 saves, meant SoHi had to battle throughout.

“It’s tough to get past these games,” SoHi coach Anthony Zurfluh said. “But one thing we’ve learned is the state tournament is a tough one.

“Being at home and getting this first one, that’s exactly what we wanted.”

With 11:24 left in the first period, North Pole jumped on top when Elias Holan finished off an assist from Carter Borkovec.

Before the end of the first period, Kyler Howell won a puck race down the ice and scored for a 1-all game.

Midway through the second period, SoHi scored twice within a minute to go up 3-1. Luke Stuber scored on Boone Theiler and Jace Appelhans assists, and Marshall DeRaeve finished off Mykah Booth and Daniel Heath helpers.

Zurfluh said Theiler, Appelhans and Stuber were dangerous all night, but just as important was the second line of Gehret Medcoff, DeRaeve and Heath. He said that line did a great job of getting the puck deep against the Patriots’ top line, then forechecking.

With a minute left in the second, North Pole cut it to 3-2 by scoring its only power-play goal in seven chances. Kagen Kramer scored with help from Max Earl and Borkovec.

With 13:11 left in the game, Stuber struck again, assisted by Theiler and Andrew Arthur for a 4-2 lead.

With 4:21 left in the game, SoHi received a five-minute major but successfully killed it off for the victory.

“They’ve got a good penalty kill,” Patriots coach Edward Halbert said. “Big, strong kids and they’re fast. Big, wide ice and we’re not really used to that.”

Arthur, who was named player of the game along with Borkovec, was relied on heavily to kill all the penalties.

“Our penalty kill was probably the best it’s been in a long time,” Arthur said. “We work on it a little bit, but we really just fall into order and stay in that box.”

Both Zurfluh and Arthur said goalie Tanner Clyde was key to all the penalty kills. He had 19 saves.

“He was a rock tonight,” Zurfluh said. “And that’s what we need if we’re going to move on.”

Palmer 12, Kodiak 0

The No. 2-seeded Moose cruised into the semifinals with a victory over the No. 7 Bears, who were making their first appearance at state.

Palmer scored three times in the first period, seven times in the second period and twice in the final period.

Keagon O’Bryan had the shutout for the Moose on eight saves. For Kodiak, Simon Lonheim made 23 saves on 33 shots in the first two periods, and Garrett Wood made 8 saves on 10 shots in the final period.

Elijah Von Gunten had four goals for Palmer, while Tavian Mukaabya had a hat trick, Dane Joseph had two goals, and Nathanael Wright, Bryce Horaceck and Kinan Greco had tallies.

Kellan Payne and Clayton Conrad had three assists, while Wright had two assists and Bradford Heard, Greco, Chase Ringler, Kaleb Von Gunten, Jackson Neumann and Elijah Von Gunten added assists.

Houston 10, Tri-Valley 0

The top-seeded Hawks started the tournament with a dominant victory over the No. 8 Viking Warriors.

Houston scored three times in the first period, three times in the second period and four times in the third period.

Ari Burnside had the shutout on eight saves for the Hawks. Elijah Graham stopped 45 for the Viking Warriors.

Brody Richard had a hat trick for the Hawks, and also added an assist. Domnin Efimov and Brayden Spain added two goals for Houston, while Trenton Huber, Afanasy Efimov and Daniel Matveev added tallies.

Spain and Matveev had three assists, while Afanasy Efimov had two assists and Zasmin Konev, Caymen Kingery and Owen Hunter had assists.