St. Cloud Apollo vs. St. Cloud Cathedral
6:15 p.m., Saturday, Dec. 12

Granite City is the location for this classic matchup between crosstown rivals ranked in the top 10 of the Class 1A coaches’ poll.

St. Cloud Apollo (1-1) has only played twice heading into the season's third week, though the No. 4-1A Eagles get three contests this week, starting with No. 18-1A Alexandria (Dec. 8), followed by No. 15-1A Sartell-St. Stephen (Dec. 11) and wrapping up with No. 9-1A St. Cloud Cathedral on Saturday at the Municipal Athletic Complex (MAC).

This year’s Apollo team is veteran-laden with 15 seniors on the roster, experience that should benefit the Eagles as they look to make a postseason run to the Xcel Energy Center for the second straight season and third in the last four years. 

Gino Lucia, who finished last season tied for the team lead in goals with 16, (16-13-29), and fellow seniors Brandon Bissett (14-9-24) and Trevor Vossen (12-7-1) head up an Eagles squad that returns five of its six leading scorers from a year ago. This season, six different players have scored goals, though only senior defenseman Tanner Breidenbach has more than one.

The Crusaders have been busy in starting the season, getting four games in before Dec. 1 while compiling a 5-1 record.

Cathedral is coming off victories last week over St. Cloud Tech (5-2) and Rochester Lourdes (5-1), which served the team well as bounce-back games following its 4-3 loss at No. 3-1A East Grand Forks on Nov. 28.

Senior forward and captain Logan Neu leads the Crusaders in scoring with five goals and nine points. Junior forward Michael Spethmann is also coming along, scoring a goal in each of the last four games. 

Last year, Cathedral came up with a 2-1 victory during their Dec. 9 meeting at the MAC.