David La Vaque has covered all but one state hockey tournament game since 2009 and has worked as a Star Tribune high school sports reporter since 2004. His favorite tournament experiences include cheering for alma mater St. Paul Johnson in 1991 and staying for most of the Apple Valley/Duluth East marathon semifinal game in 1996. Loren Nelson has covered every state tournament for the MN Hockey Hub since 2009. He attended many, many other Tourney games as a high schooler from the far northern reaches of Minnesota making the annual pilgrimage south to the old St. Paul Civic Center in the 1980s.
Sophomore Aidan Willis scored twice for Lakeville South on Wednesday, bumping his season total to four. Photo by Cheryl A. Myers, SportsEngine
The second installment of our daily 2021 All-Tournament Team, as selected by Loren Nelson and David La Vaque.
FORWARDS
Ian Barbour
Maple Grove | Senior
Barbour doesn’t have a mountain of goals this season (11), but prime time seems to be his time to excell. He scored a power-play goal with 13 seconds left in the first period then clinched Wednesday’s win by scoring again late in the third.
Carter Batchelder
Eden Prairie | Senior
It took a couple periods for Batchelder to work some kinks out of his game, but once he got rolling the rest of the Eagles did the same. Batchelder sparked a five-goal third-period explosion with a rebound goal, then finished the flurry with an empty-netter.
Aidan Willis
Lakeville South | Sophomore
You’d think Willis was a defenseman looking solely at his season stat line — 4 goals, 19 assists. Watching him score a pair of goals in sniper-like fashion on Wednesday, the only question is why doesn’t he have more?
DEFENSEMEN
Henry Nelson
Maple Grove | Senior
When Nelson unloads a shot there’s a better than fair chance the puck’s destination is an upper corner of the net. At least that’s the way it worked Wednesday when Nelson scored a power play goal on a 30-foot blast then was credited with an assist when Kyle Kukkonen re-directed another of his shots into the net’s upper reaches.
Kam Langefels
Eden Prairie | Senior
Scored on a third-period rocket as the Eagles surged to victory. He also had an assist, four shots on goal and shared the team lead with a plus/minus of plus-4.
GOALTENDER
Cody Ticen
Lakeville South | Senior
Ticen and Ethan Dahlmeir have rotated starts all season, but now what? Ticen’s jitter-free, 33-save performance against a surprisingly potent Moorhead team certainly makes him an attractive option in the semifinals.