FARGO — Fargo South-Shanley was not about to give up its winning ways against Mandan in the North Dakota boys hockey state tournament quarterfinals. The Bruins dominated from start to finish as they pushed their winning streak to nine games on Thursday with a 4-1 victory over Mandan.
The Braves were no match for the Bruins, who haven’t dropped a game since a 3-2 overtime loss to Fargo Davies on Jan. 25. With the win, South-Shanley advanced to Friday's semifinals and will face the winner of the quarterfinal between Grand Forks Red River and Bismarck Legacy.
"We feel good; we're happy," Bruins head coach Dean French said. "We know that the next game is going to be one of the toughest of the year."
After seeing the previous quarterfinal game between Davies and Minot go scoreless until the third period, South-Shanley (19-5-0) was determined to get on the board early. It took 90 seconds for the Bruins to find the back of the net, thanks to Sam Ovsak, who started the scoring with an early rebound goal.
"Being able to get one early really lifted a lot of pressure off the kids," French said.
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The Bruins used a relentless forecheck to spend most of the game in Mandan's territory. The Braves (8-17-1) wouldn't get their first shot on net until nine minutes in, when the Bruins had already registered 11.
South-Shanley stretched its lead to 2-0 at the 9:36 mark when Andrew O'Neill tapped home a one-time feed from Landon Meier off the left faceoff circle. The Bruins outshot Mandan 16-3 in the first frame, and carried that momentum right into the second.
Will Hofer lit the lamp for South-Shanley 29 seconds into the second period with a snipe from the slot. Zach Boren set Hofer up with a pass from behind the net as South-Shanley grabbed a three-goal lead.
The Bruins dominated on both ends of the ice, as zone exits came at a premium for Mandan. Bennett Leingang, the Braves' sophomore goalie, turned away shot after shot to keep his team in the game. Leingang finished with 47 saves.
Rylan Bechtel got the Braves on the board late in the second period after he picked off a breakout pass in the high slot and rifled the puck into the net. The Bruins responded less than two minutes later with an Ovsak power-play goal in the final second to set up the game-clinching score.
"I thought we gutted it out. I thought we played as hard as we could," French said. "But sometimes you just don't have that spark or that emotion. Our players tend to play better when they have that internal fire. I didn't think we had that today."
The top-seeded Bruins outshot West No. 4 seed Mandan by a whopping 39-11 after two periods. South-Shanley controlled the tempo and generated multiple scoring chances in the final period, but were held scoreless in the final 17 minutes of action.
French said the team wasn't as sharp as it could've been in Thursday's quarterfinal win.
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"Our guys didn't quite bear down or finish the opportunities that they had," French said. "And I think when they're more mentally alert and they're more into it, they tend to finish better."
FIRST PERIOD: 1, FSS, Ovsak (Verwest, Myers), 1:30. 2, FSS, O'Neill (Meier), 9:36.
SECOND PERIOD: 3, FSS, Hofer (Boren, Lang), :29. 4, M, Bechtel, 15:14. 5, FSS, Osvak (Hofer, Lang), 16:59.
THIRD PERIOD: No scoring.
SAVES: FSS, Olsonawski 3-7-4—14. M, Leingang 16-19-12—47.
