Warroad and Crookston Girl’s Hockey Meet Again: Winner Goes to State

For the fourth consecutive year, Warroad and Crookston girl's hockey meet in the Section 8A Championship.

THIEF RIVER FALLS, Minn. (KVRR) –The expectation in Warroad, Minnesota, is championships.

“There’s always kind of pressure,” said senior defenseman Katy Comstock. “Hanging a gold banner is always the goal, so try not to think about anything else but that right now.”

Nine… that is how many consecutive years the Warroad Warriors girl’s hockey team has won Section 8A and punched their ticket to the state tournament. And three straight times they ended the season as the last team standing, winning the Class A state championship. Thursday night the Warriors will look to make it 10 straight section titles and their opponent, for the fourth straight year, will be the Crookston Pirates.

“One of the things for us, and we talk about it quite frequently, is that we’re always going to get everybody’s best game,” said assistant coach Blayke Nelson. “Especially being back to back to back now, people want to take the top one down, right? Every game is tough at this time of the year.”

For the Crookston seniors, every year of their high school career has ended with a defeat to Warroad just one game away from the state tournament. They hope this year is the year of the Pirates.

“Obviously, it’s big,” said senior goaltender Kambelle Freije. “They’re always the team to beat for us. It’s not a fun rivalry. I think there’s a lot of low-key dislike towards them because we’ve never been able to do it when it matters.”

Senior forward Addison Fee added, “My first year of playing Crookston hockey, I was in eighth grade, I think. And the first game we played against them, we lost 18 to 0. So, I think that us coming so close, the past two years especially, has really been like, I don’t know…proud of my team and I think that this year we could actually make it to the State tournament.”

On the flip side, for the Warriors seniors, they have the unique opportunity to win their section yet again, and give themselves the opportunity to win a state championship every year of their high school career. They also could become the first program in Minnesota High School Girl’s hockey to win four straight state championships.

“This program has given us a lot of opportunities,” said Warriors’ Comstock. “I think getting back to the state tournament is definitely a dream and a goal for all of us.”

Thursday night’s game will surely be a good one. Both teams share what they believe they have to do to punch their ticket to state.

“We’re just going to have to come out hard and have pucks flying to the net,” said Comstock. “They’ve got a good group of girls this year and we can’t look past that game at all.”

Crookston head coach, Reed Olson, said, “I think we just have to play our positions. Be where we’re supposed to be at all times and just make sure that they can’t get going. They’re good at all three phases on their team, and I believe we are as well. I feel if we can shut them down offensively and we can get our shots on net and crash the net and put them back in, I feel like we will have a good shot on Thursday.”

The Warriors come in with a 23-3 record while the Pirates are 14-10-1. Earlier this season, Warroad won 3-1.

Puck drop is set for 7 P.M. at the Ralph Engelstad Arena in Thief River Falls, Minnesota.

Stay tuned to KVRR as we will have highlights LIVE from the arena.