Class A QF: Litchfield/Dassel-Cokato vs. #3 Orono

The Latest 400 or so Topics

Moderators: Mitch Hawker, east hockey, karl(east)

Post Reply

Who wins?

Dragons
6
33%
Spartans
12
67%
 
Total votes: 18

karl(east)
Posts: 6462
Joined: Tue Jul 17, 2007 9:03 pm
Contact:

Class A QF: Litchfield/Dassel-Cokato vs. #3 Orono

Post by karl(east) » Sun Mar 04, 2018 8:26 am

LITCHFIELD/DASSEL-COKATO VS. #3 ORONO
-Two Wright County Conference schools (despite the fact that neither is located in Wright County) collide in the quarterfinals. Orono won both regular season meetings in convincing fashion, with 10-0 and 7-1, and has won 38 straight games in this conference series dating to a Litchfield win in December 2001, including four playoff games when both were in 3A.

Litchfield/Dassel-Cokato (16-11-1, unranked, 2-seed in 3A)
State appearances: 4 (first since 2016)
Key section win: 4-1 over #19 Luverne
-The Dragons return to State after offing Luverne in a mild upset to win 3A. Brandt Pederson (4) is their unquestioned star offensively, while defenseman Orrin Grangroth (18) is their second leading scorer, both in goals and points. Paul Raisanen (27) and Dylan Schutz (10) round out the top line, and also had productive seasons. They’ll need a big performance out of Darby Halonen (30) in goal to have a chance, and he comes in hot off a strong performance over Luverne. Special teams were not a strength, so staying out of the box will be key to their hopes of flipping the script.

Orono (20-7-1, #5, 1-seed in 2A)
State appearances: 9 (first since 2014)
Key section wins: 6-3 over #11 Minneapolis, 2-1 over 6-seed Breck
-The Spartans put together their strongest season in recent memory and came out of one of Class A’s deepest sections. Senior Jack Suchy (16) is their star, and Thomas Walker (23) is next in line on their list of point-getters, but like Mahtomedi, this is a relatively deep Class A group, as they have eight forwards over 15 points. The forwards take care of most of their offensive production, with Daniel Eckerline (37) and Jack Kubitz (22) leading the charge on defense. Evan Babekuhl (33) is one of the stronger netminders in the field. Given the regular season results they should cruise to a date with Mahtomedi for a metro area championship of sorts, but they did lose to a 3A team in Hutchinson this season.

Stang5280
Posts: 1955
Joined: Wed Jun 28, 2017 1:12 pm

Re: Class A QF: Litchfield/Dassel-Cokato vs. #3 Orono

Post by Stang5280 » Sun Mar 04, 2018 2:17 pm

karl(east) wrote:LITCHFIELD/DASSEL-COKATO VS. #3 ORONO
-Two Wright County Conference schools (despite the fact that neither is located in Wright County) collide in the quarterfinals. Orono won both regular season meetings in convincing fashion, with 10-0 and 7-1, and has won 38 straight games in this conference series dating to a Litchfield win in December 2001, including four playoff games when both were in 3A.
Cokato is in Wright County, but the other two communities in the co-op are in Meeker County. I like to refer to it as the “Wright County” Conference, since Delano (and co-op partner Rockford) is the only school that is actually located in the county. (Annandale also competes in the WCC for other sports.) I wish I knew more of the conference history, but it is a strange grouping and rather spread out geographically.

Anyway, on a hockey level it is rather shocking to hear the stat about Orono winning 38 straight times in the series. LDC was in a down period for much of that stretch, but you’d think they would sneak up on the Spartans at least once. I don’t like the matchup for LTC, and think they might fare better against Mahtomedi. Plus, it isn’t particularly interesting to watch two conference foes play for a third time in the state quarterfinals.

hockeydad
Posts: 1379
Joined: Mon Mar 04, 2002 9:57 pm

Post by hockeydad » Sun Mar 04, 2018 9:29 pm

I chuckled when I saw this matchup. The Orono coach was on WCCO friday and they asked him about whether he would prefer to see seeding 1-8 instead of 1-5 and random draw. He threw a little shade at the MSHSL's random draw, saying something to the effect that he would guarantee the Spartans won't play LDC because it would be the third time this season they'd match up.

Also - a year by year history of WCC membership going back to the 1960s can be found on the conference's website wcconference.org, click under policies. Original members were Annandale, Buffalo, Cokato, Delano, Howard Lake Waverly, Kimball, Maple Lake, Monticello, Watertown-Mayer. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure none of those schools had hockey back then.

From the website, it appears the first WCC hockey championship was awarded in 2006.

Schotzy
Posts: 357
Joined: Tue Mar 03, 2015 10:36 am

Post by Schotzy » Mon Mar 05, 2018 9:24 am

hockeydad wrote:Also - a year by year history of WCC membership going back to the 1960s can be found on the conference's website wcconference.org, click under policies. Original members were Annandale, Buffalo, Cokato, Delano, Howard Lake Waverly, Kimball, Maple Lake, Monticello, Watertown-Mayer. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure none of those schools had hockey back then.

From the website, it appears the first WCC hockey championship was awarded in 2006.
They did not have hockey, but I bet they had Basketball.

Stang5280
Posts: 1955
Joined: Wed Jun 28, 2017 1:12 pm

Post by Stang5280 » Mon Mar 05, 2018 1:47 pm

hockeydad wrote:Also - a year by year history of WCC membership going back to the 1960s can be found on the conference's website wcconference.org, click under policies. Original members were Annandale, Buffalo, Cokato, Delano, Howard Lake Waverly, Kimball, Maple Lake, Monticello, Watertown-Mayer. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure none of those schools had hockey back then.

From the website, it appears the first WCC hockey championship was awarded in 2006.
Buffalo’s first varsity season was 1976-77, and by then they had moved to the West Suburban Conference. From my quick research, STMA was the first WCC school to start a hockey program in 1978. 2006 looks about right for the first hockey championship, when there started being enough schools competing in the sport. That was kind of a cool link to look at the changes in conference membership over the years.

danglesnipecelly13
Posts: 30
Joined: Thu Feb 05, 2015 4:15 pm

Re: Class A QF: Litchfield/Dassel-Cokato vs. #3 Orono

Post by danglesnipecelly13 » Mon Mar 05, 2018 2:21 pm

Stang5280 wrote:
karl(east) wrote:LITCHFIELD/DASSEL-COKATO VS. #3 ORONO
-Two Wright County Conference schools (despite the fact that neither is located in Wright County) collide in the quarterfinals. Orono won both regular season meetings in convincing fashion, with 10-0 and 7-1, and has won 38 straight games in this conference series dating to a Litchfield win in December 2001, including four playoff games when both were in 3A.
Cokato is in Wright County, but the other two communities in the co-op are in Meeker County. I like to refer to it as the “Wright County” Conference, since Delano (and co-op partner Rockford) is the only school that is actually located in the county. (Annandale also competes in the WCC for other sports.) I wish I knew more of the conference history, but it is a strange grouping and rather spread out geographically.

Anyway, on a hockey level it is rather shocking to hear the stat about Orono winning 38 straight times in the series. LDC was in a down period for much of that stretch, but you’d think they would sneak up on the Spartans at least once. I don’t like the matchup for LTC, and think they might fare better against Mahtomedi. Plus, it isn’t particularly interesting to watch two conference foes play for a third time in the state quarterfinals.
If we played em 39 times they might win 38, but not tonight boys, not tonight.

albert
Posts: 1
Joined: Tue Mar 06, 2018 9:44 am

Post by albert » Tue Mar 06, 2018 9:52 am

Dassel-Cokato High School is in Wright County (accounting for approximately 75% of the roster). Also, these teams were formerly together in Section 6A, not 3A.

Stang5280
Posts: 1955
Joined: Wed Jun 28, 2017 1:12 pm

Post by Stang5280 » Tue Mar 06, 2018 11:09 am

albert wrote:Dassel-Cokato High School is in Wright County (accounting for approximately 75% of the roster). Also, these teams were formerly together in Section 6A, not 3A.
Interesting. I assumed that Litchfield, as the host school and larger city, would produce the bulk of the players. So I basically just considered that program to be more a product of Meeker County. That cooperative arrangement has been around for a long time, however, and I imagine the participantion numbers fluctuate between the various communities.

Teak
Posts: 1875
Joined: Thu Feb 28, 2008 6:27 am

Post by Teak » Wed Mar 07, 2018 2:31 pm

0-0 after 1. Orono shooting gallery near the end of the period.

Teak
Posts: 1875
Joined: Thu Feb 28, 2008 6:27 am

Post by Teak » Wed Mar 07, 2018 2:33 pm

Stang5280 wrote:
albert wrote:Dassel-Cokato High School is in Wright County (accounting for approximately 75% of the roster). Also, these teams were formerly together in Section 6A, not 3A.
Interesting. I assumed that Litchfield, as the host school and larger city, would produce the bulk of the players. So I basically just considered that program to be more a product of Meeker County. That cooperative arrangement has been around for a long time, however, and I imagine the participantion numbers fluctuate between the various communities.
I suspect that a lot of those Finnish sounding names come from the Dassel and Cokato areas since those are closer to Delano.

Post Reply