Soldotna freshman Noah Crabtree scored a power-play goal with 45 seconds left in an eight-minute, sudden-death overtime to give the Stars a 2-1 victory over Kenai Central in the semifinals of the Division II state hockey tournament at the Soldotna Regional Sports Complex.
The Stars, the No. 1 seed, face Palmer, the No. 2 seed for the championship at 5 p.m. Saturday.
Soldotna is in the final for the third straight year — winning the first state title in school history in 2023 and losing in 2024.
Palmer, which defeated No. 6 Juneau-Douglas: Yadaa.at Kale 5-2 on Friday, returns to the final for the first time since 2022.
The Moose, who are 1-2 against SoHi this season, didn’t reach the final in 2023 and 2024 due to semifinal losses to the Stars.
Kenai will play Juneau for third place — and the best finish in Kardinals history — at 2:30 p.m.
The fourth-place game pits No. 3 Houston against No. 8 Delta. The Huskies defeated No. 4 North Pole 2-1 on Friday, while the Hawks topped No. 7 Tri-Valley 9-1.
The long and proud Soldotna-Kenai hockey rivalry has seen a lot of memorable chapters, but never anything quite like Friday night.
This was the deepest the two rivals had ever met in the postseason, and to top it off, it happened at the sports complex, the scene of so many memorable editions of the rivalry over the years.
The community came out in force and nearly filled an entire side of the sports complex.
“Just to hear the noise — we usually don’t hear a whole lot from the bench over there,” Kenai head coach Steve Hallam said. “Every blocked shot, the crowd would erupt.”
When overtime arrived, both coaches mostly left their top lines out there and the fatigue was evident. Soldotna goalie Brycen Clyde and Kenai goalie Evyn Witt saw a lot of rubber as a result.
The official sheet had Kenai with 11 shots and SoHi with eight shots in the extra time.
“Evyn Witt — unbelievable,” said Soldotna head coach Anthony Zurfluh, who played in the Kenai-SoHi rivalry back in the mid-1990s. “He made five or six Grade A’s, then to come back to Brycen making a Grade A was unbelievable.
“That’s good hockey right there. I’m so proud of our peninsula teams for the show we just put on. That was $50 a ticket.”
SoHi took a penalty with 3:22 left in overtime. Kenai ran a back-door play and got the puck to a Logan Mese shot, but Clyde threw out his leg to save the game.
“That was the save of the game, for sure,” Hallam said. “I thought we set it up perfect. The puck made it all the way through traffic, he just got all the way across.”
Kenai took a penalty with 1:39 left and the Stars went on the man advantage with 1:22 to play.
Witt and Clyde had made it clear it would take a perfect shot to win, and Crabtree came up with exactly that.
He was low in the faceoff circle at a terrible angle. A Kenai defender had a stick on the ice in front of him and Witt had the near pipe nearly totally covered.
Crabtree scored anyway, somehow fitting a shot above Witt’s shoulder.
“Crossbar, then sidebar,” Crabtree said of the path the puck took into the net. “I saw the opening and decided to take it.”
The Stars mobbed Crabtree in celebration.
“That’s the biggest crowd I’ve ever played in front of,” Crabtree said. “We knew we were going to have to work hard to get it.
“This game, this is the most energy I’ve seen our team play with.”
The Kardinals all huddled around Witt for a moment together.
“Just as a team, in the moment, being with their goalie, it’s just huge,” Hallam said. “It just shows you, in my opinion, the framework of Kenai and what we’re doing.
“We’re in it together.”
SoHi upped its mark against the Kardinals to 2-3 this season, avenging an overtime loss at the sports complex on Jan. 30.
“Couldn’t have been scripted any better,” Zurfluh said. “We owed them that. They came into our house and did that to us last week or whatever.
“For us to be able to return the favor on the biggest stage going, it’s unbelievable.”
SoHi’s problem against Kenai had been slow starts. Zurfluh credited assistant Dagen Walton with putting together film to show the team how to avoid that Friday.
“If I didn’t have coach Dagen as an assistant right now, we’d probably be in a different spot,” Zurfluh said.
It worked as the two squads had just seven shots apiece in a scoreless first period that featured fierce, checking hockey.
With 3:50 left in the second period, Kenai’s vaunted first line finally struck when Avery Martin scored with help from William Howard and Mese.
Crabtree answered with 13:56 left in the game, steering in a rebound off a Marshall DeRaeve shot. It took a little over 76 minutes for Witt to finally allow his first goal of the tournament.
At that point, the game became more and more a war of attrition, with the first two periods of intense hockey clearly settling into the players’ legs.
Hallam said the team had come to practice every day and worked hard for moments like that.
“They gave everything they had on the ice,” Hallam said. “They did absolutely everything that we could to win. So I’m proud of them.”
Said Zurfluh: “We just turned up our grit and went for them. There’s no secret of what they have. There’s no secret of what we have. It was just whoever dug deepest. That game could have went either way five different times.”
When it came to winning time, Crabtree may have had something extra. Once a week, he shows up at 6 a.m. at the Kenai Multi-Purpose Facility and gets personal lessons from Kenai assistant Jenna Redford, a former Division I player at St. Cloud State in Minnesota.
Zurfluh didn’t even know Crabtree was doing that until a friend and youth hockey coach reported that a kid named Noah had been skating lines in the early morning at the multi-purpose facility.
“The kid’s got hockey IQ coming out his ears,” Zurfluh said of Crabtree. “He’s a stud. He lives and breathes hockey.
“And he did his job tonight.”
The SoHi coach also said defensemen Zack Zurfluh and Nathan Hawkins did a great job matching up with Mese and Martin.
After an 8-5 win over Palmer early in the season, the Moose crushed SoHi 7-1 at the sports complex in early December. SoHi then topped Palmer 4-1 in mid-January.
“We’ll probably watch video of when they thrashed us,” Zurfluh said. “I think if we play real physical against them, we’re gonna give ourselves the best chance.”
Kenai will regroup to take on Juneau. The Kards are 2-0 against the Crimson Bears.
“We get one last time as a family, one last time to skate together,” Hallam said.
Palmer 5, Juneau 2
Elijah Von Gunten had a hat trick as the Moose took a 4-1 lead with 10 minutes left in the second period in taking the victory.
Von Gunten started the scoring in the first period, but Dylan Sowa answered for Juneau.
Cooper Frank gave the Moose a 2-1 lead headed to the second period, then Von Gunten had his hat trick just five minutes into the second period.
In the third period, Kaleb Von Gunten put Palmer up 5-1 before Sowa scored again for the Crimson Bears.
Kai Curl made 16 saves for Palmer, while Caleb Friend stopped 36 for Juneau.
Delta 2, North Pole 1
Huskies goalie Anthony White made 47 saves to steal one for Delta. Kieran Olson had 18 saves for the Patriots.
Ciara Creviston opened the scoring for Delta in the second period, but Ryan Weber answered for North Pole.
Creviston struck again for a 2-1 lead headed to the third.
North Pole outshot Delta 21-2 in the third period, but could not find the equalizer.
Houston 9, Tri-Valley 1
Daniel Matveev and Andrey Efimov had hat tricks as the Hawks cruised past the Viking Warriors.
Zasim Konev scored twice for the Hawks, while Owen Hunter added a tally.
Quincy Hjorth scored for Tri-Valley.
Elijah Graham had 33 saves for the Viking Warriors, while Ashton Vandersloot stopped 18 for the Hawks.
Friday
First National Cup
Division II state hockey tournament
Stars 2, Kardinals 1, OT
Ken 0 1 0 0 —1
Sol 0 0 1 1 —2
First period — none. Penalties — Kenai 2 for 4:00; Soldotna 1 for 2:00.
Second period — 1. Kenai, Martin (Howard, Mese), 11:10. Penalties — Kenai 1 for 2:00; Soldotna 2 for 4:00.
Third period — 2. Soldotna, Crabtree (DeRaeve), 1:04. Penalties — none.
Overtime — 3. Soldotna, Crabtree (Heath), pp, 7:15. Penalties — Kenai 1 for 2:00; Soldotna 1 for 2:00.
Shots on goal — Kenai 7-11-10-8—36; Soldotna 7-9-7-11—34.
Goalies — Kenai, Witt (34 shots, 32 saves); Soldotna, Clyde (36 shots, 35 saves).
Power plays — Kenai 0 for 4; Soldotna 1 for 4.
Soldotna’s Marshall DeRaeve carries the puck against Kenai Central’s Cole Langham on Friday, Feb. 7, 2025, at the First National Cup Division II state hockey tournament at the Soldotna Regional Sports Complex in Soldotna, Alaska. (Photo by Jeff Helminiak/Peninsula Clarion)
The Kenai Central hockey team huddles together after losing to Soldotna in the semifinals Friday, Feb. 7, 2025, at the First National Cup Division II state hockey tournament at the Soldotna Regional Sports Complex in Soldotna, Alaska. (Photo by Jeff Helminiak/Peninsula Clarion)
Kenai Central’s Avery Martin celebrates his goal Friday, Feb. 7, 2025, at the First National Cup Division II state hockey tournament at the Soldotna Regional Sports Complex in Soldotna, Alaska. (Photo by Jeff Helminiak/Peninsula Clarion)
Soldotna’s Keegan Myrick shields the puck from Kenai Central’s Everett Chamberlain on Friday, Feb. 7, 2025, at the First National Cup Division II state hockey tournament at the Soldotna Regional Sports Complex in Soldotna, Alaska. (Photo by Jeff Helminiak/Peninsula Clarion)
