Boys Hockey 2025: East Grand Forks shuts out Northern Lakes in a Class A quarterfinal
Posted: Wednesday, March 5, 2025 - 10:27 PM
The Northern Lakes Lightning scored at least one goal in their first 28 games of the 2024-2025 Boys Hockey season. Usually, they scored a lot more than one.
Wednesday at the Boys Hockey State Tournament, East Grand Forks and sophomore goalie Noah Schindele shut them out. No. 4 seed East Grand Forks capitalized on a pair of power-play goals and ousted No. 5 seed Northern Lakes 3-0 in a Class A quarterfinal at Xcel Energy Center in downtown St. Paul.
East Grand Forks (14-13-2) will meet No. 1 seed Hibbing/Chisholm (20-9) in a semifinal game at 1 p.m. Friday. Northern Lakes (19-9-1) plays again at noon Thursday in a consolation game against No. 8 seed Luverne (22-5-2) at 3M Arena at Mariucci.
Schindele making 24 saves was one key story in Wednesday night’s game. So were power plays. The Green Wave were 2-for-2, the Lightning 0-for-3.
East Grand Forks broke through with 3:26 remaining in the second period when Cole Bies’ shot was deflected by Cole Schmiedeberg, then put home by Jace Van Eps.
Schmiedeberg was key on another power play less than four minutes into the third, taking a feed from Tucker Lovejoy and finding Jace Panzer, who doubled the Green Wave lead.
Northern Lakes had its share of chances, managing only two fewer shots on goal than it allowed. But Schindele and East Grand Forks kept a zero on the board, including throughout a five-minute power play in the third period.
Lovejoy scored on an empty net with 1:36 to go for the final margin.
