Cathedral Hockey To Battle Mahtomedi At State: Tale Of The Tape

The Cathedral Crusaders are back in the Class A Boys Hockey State Tournament with a chance to be repeat state champions. After a strong regular season and a nearly perfect run through three section playoff games, the Crusaders' title defense continues Wednesday at Xcel Energy Center in a quarterfinal matchup with the Mahtomedi Zephyrs.

Cathedral checks in to the tourney with an 18-8-2 record, while Mahtomedi enters the tournament at 11-15-2. The two teams met in the regular season finale, with Cathedral winning 4-3 in overtime at the MAC on February 15th.

REGULAR SEASON MATCHUP 

Mahtomedi struck first in that game, with Blake Loida scoring the first of the game's five power play goals at 3:53. Cathedral answered less than a minute later with a power play goal from Jaeger Wood, but Mahtomedi answered with a Brayden Fuerst goal with just over seven minutes left in the opening period.

The Zephyrs made the score 3-1 halfway through the second period when Brock Gutterman scored on a power play. Shots on goal were fairly even through two periods at 19-14 in favor of Cathedral, but the tide would turn in the third period and overtime.

Griffin Sturm scored at 7:14 of the third period to cut the Zephyr lead in half, then tallied a power play goal just over two minutes later to tie the game at three.  Although Cathedral outshot Mahtomedi 17-4 in the third, the game went overtime.

After a tripping minor gave the Crusaders a power play less than a minute into overtime, Sturm struck again for the game-winning, hat trick-sealing goal.

WEDNESDAY'S GAME 

- John Hirschfeld leads Cathedral with 25 goals and 76 points this season. The senior was named the Minnesota Star Tribune's Boys Hockey Player Of The Year on Tuesday.

- Wood (21) and Joey Gillespie are the other 20-goal scorers this season for Cathedral, with Sturm (19) and Bo Schmidt (15) also in double-digits.

- Junior Keaton LeGrande started all 28 games in net for the Crusaders this season while posting a 17-6-2 record, 2.65 goals against average and an .894 save percentage.

- LeGrande has stopped 50 of 53 shots so far in the postseason, including 20 of 20 in the section final against Monticello.

- Devin O'Donnell led Mahtomedi with 28 points and 16 assists while finishing second in goals with 12.

- Laken Decker (13) and Winston Wright (11) also scored in double-digits.

- Goalies Wes Strub and Jackson Chesak both started over ten games this season. Strub played in the section semifinal game against Highland Park and the final against Chisago Lakes, stopping 57 of 60 shots faced.

WHAT: CLASS A BOYS HOCKEY STATE TOURNAMENT
WHERE: XCEL ENERGY CENTER, ST. PAUL
WHEN: WEDNESDAY, MARCH 5th, 2025
WATCH: PREP 45 (LINK)