Johnny Grove’s backhanded goal at 4:56 of double overtime gave the Mahtomedi Zephrys a 6-5 win over the Warroad Warriors in the Class A Minnesota state boys’ hockey tournament on Saturday.
Mahtomedi wins the Class A Championship in 2OT on a superb rebound effort pic.twitter.com/6uLwbVGHCu
— CJ Fogler 🫡 (@cjzero) March 11, 2023
Grove’s goal stunned Warroad, who had gone 29-0-1 this season and entered the tournament as the No. 1 seed. Mahtomedi, the No. 3 seed, finished 23-8-0.
It was a thriller from start to finish, with Mathomedi rallying from deficits of 3-1 and 4-2 and 5-3, the latter two-goal deficits both in the third period.
The Class A powers traded goals in the first period before Warroad scored twice in a span of 2 minutes, 17 seconds in the second period for a 3-1 lead. Mahtomedi’s Patrick Egan scored with 1:21 left in the second to cut Warroad’s lead to one.
The third was wild. Warroad went up 4-2 on Carson Pilgrim’s third goal of the game and seventh of the tournament – and that’s when Mahtomedi’s Charlie Drage took over.
Drage scored at 4:36 of the third period, and then after Warroad got a goal from Peyton Sunderland to take a 5-3 lead, Drage scored at 11:00 to make it 5-4 and he scored again with 1:20 left in regulation to tie the game, complete his natural hat trick and force overtime.
Edina and Minnetonka meet at 7 p.m. Saturday in the Class AA championship game.
