Bud's Sarah Bruzek supports big sister

By Tom Obert
Cub Reporter
"Baby Bruiser," senior Brittney Bruzek's little sister Sarah (with Alex athletic director Dave Hartmann over her left shoulder, red sweater) reflects the excitement surrounding our girls hockey team's third straight visit to the state tournament, this time at the Xcel Center in St. Paul.

Our Cards had the daunting task of facing year-long No. 1 ranked So. St. Paul in the opening game. The Packers had won 3 straight state titles in class AA (the big schools) but this year had dropped down to class A (the small schools). In Alex's two previous trips to state, we failed to win a game - losing both years to Hibbing and New Prague.

The Packers lived up to their billing and proved to be too much for our Cards with a 4 - 2 victory on Friday. The Packers were the better team that day and to their credit went on to win the championship the next day against Warroad. Sophomore Kathryn Del Zoppo and senior Michaela Carlson were to goal scorers for Alex. (As an aside, this cub reporter has been long-time buddies with a Packer alum he met while at the "U." Archivists are currently searching for a photo of this buddy which the cub reporter believes will "prove" conclusively that there is a weird cult in existence in So. St. Paul and that this cult may have been responsible for placing a hex on our Cardinals!)

Saturday morning our stalwarts had to rise early for the 9:00 am 3rd-place game against, once again - New Prague. New Prague featured the highest scoring player in the state, with 104 points (goals + assists), and another terrific player who had 89 points on the year. And has been the Card's M.O. in recent games, New Prague scored within the first minute of the game - and then scored two other cheap goals early in that period. Alex's coach called a time-up, after which the Cards played with a renewed passion and dominated the rest of the game. Nevertheless, New Prague led 3-1 (Brittney Bruzek scored for the Cards) after the first period even though Alex had an 11-6 shots-on-goal advantage.

In the second period, Alex continued to dominate play and Kathryn Del Zoppo scored for the Cards making the score 3-2 heading into the 3rd period. Ten seconds into that final period, sophomore Abby Williams got an accidental tripping penalty and New Prague scored on that power play making the score 4-2. Things looked bleak for the Cards, but halfway though the period, senior Ahna Olson scored bringing the Cards back to within one goal. Then with less than 7 minutes left in the game, New Prague received a rare double penalty as a player tripped Abby Williams and as the play continued on another player high-sticked Kathryn Del Zoppo. Taking advantage of the 5-on-3 situation, Kathryn "The Sniper" Del Zoppo (who has a knack for scoring in skirmishes around the goal) scored her second goal of the game, and third of the tournament, to tie the score. Momentum now was clearly on the side of the Cards, and Ashley Holmes ripped a slap-shot from the blue line with about 3 1/2 minutes to go to give the Cards a 5-4 lead. That lead would hold so the Cards finally won, in their 6th attempt, a state tournament game.

Abby Williams was selected to the all-tournament team. Although you will note she did not score a goal in either game, she was absolultely superb against New Prague - she assisted on 4 of the 5 goals, had 12 shots-on-goal (more than twice as many as any player on either team), and amazingly won 25 of 39 face-offs. Although we so say goodbye, and thank you, to 11 seniors this year, and wish them well as they move on to life after Big Jeff, we will look forward to another state tournament appearnace next year led by Abby, Kathryn, Ashley, and sophomore goalie Danielle Justice.