FIRST PHOTO BY ANGELINA DELLA ROCCO/PLAINSMAN
Huron’s Izabel Casper skates with the puck during a game Saturday against Watertown at Bergman Arena.
SECOND PHOTO BY MIKE CARROLL/PLAINSMAN
In the second photo, Huron’s Kylee Small skates with the puck during a game Jan. 5 against Oahe at Bergman Arena.
Posted
Mike Carroll of the Plainsman
HURON — The Huron U14 girls’ hockey team is poised to make a run at a state championship in its own rink. The 2019 South Dakota U14 State Tournament will begin today and continue through Sunday at Bergman Arena.
After going 16-2 this season to win the regular season league title, the Lady All-Stars will be the top seed for the 7-team event.
“It has definitely been a fun season and to go into the state tournament ranked No. 1 and to be on our ice is really big for the girls,” Huron coach Bryan Small said. “They are very pumped up and ready for the tournament.”
As the top seed, the Lady All-Stars will receive a bye in the opening round.
Kicking off the opening round at 2 p.m. Today will be fourth-seeded Mitchell (9-8-1) against No. 5 Watertown (7-10-1) at 2 p.m. Third-seeded Aberdeen (11-6-1) will face No. 6 Brookings (3-14-1) at 4:30 p.m. And second-seeded Sioux Falls (15-3) will play No. 7 Sioux Center (0-18) at 7 p.m.
Huron will face the winner of the Mitchell and Watertown game in a semi-final matchup at 8 p.m. Saturday.
“The key to reaching the championship game is to stick to our game like we have all season, and to keep working as a team, which is the main reason we have had such a successful season this year,” Small said. “They are a very good group of hockey players and how they all work together is amazing.”
The Lady All-Stars, who opened the season with a 14-game winning streak, have several of the top skaters in the league.
Huron forward Kylee Small led the league in scoring, assists and points this season. She scored 40 goals this season, while recording 14 assists and finishing with 54 points.
Devin Hunter was fourth in scoring this season for the Lady All-Stars with 20 goals. She also tied for second in the league with 13 assists, with teammate Izabel Casper. Hunter and Casper tallied 33 and 24 points, respectively, to finish third and tied for fifth in the league.
Azalea Rashaad finished in the top-10 scoring for Huron with 13 goals. She also had eight assists to share the eighth spot in the league with teammate Alexis Priest.
Defensively, goalie Marissa Ready had a save percentrage of 84.7, which put her eighth in the league. She had a 1.76 goals against average during the season.
Ready recorded seven shutouts during the regular season. The Lady All-Stars scored a total of 112 goals this season, while having just 30 goals scored against them in 18 league games.
“Our older group of girls are role models for the younger girls on the team,” Small said. “They are always helping make the younger ones better hockey players.”
Huron’s lone setbacks this season came against Sioux Falls in back-to-back games. Small says the Lady All-Stars remain confident heading into the state tournament.
“We lost twice to Sioux Falls and beat them once,” he said. “When we lost to them the first time we had two girls injured and four girls injured the second time we lost to them.”
The loser of today’s opening game between Mitchell and Watertown will receive a bye in the consolation semifinals on Saturday, while the loser of today’s second and third games will meet in the consolation semifinals at 2 p.m. Saturday, with the loser of that game being the seventh-place finisher.
The first semi-final matchup on Saturday will pit the winner of today’s second and third games against each other at 4:30 p.m. Saturday, with the Huron game against Mitchell or Watertown slated for 7 p.m.
The consolation title game is scheduled for 9 a.m. Sunday, followed by the third-place game at 11:30 a.m. And the championship game at 2 p.m.
