Moorhead Boys Hockey’s Growth Leads Them into State Tournament

Winners in six straight; head to state as unseeded teams

MOORHEAD, Minn — Moorhead boys’ hockey makes its 18th state tournament appearance on Wednesday as Class AA action gets underway at Xcel Energy Center, however it wasn’t the easy road to get there.

Coming into a new year, the Spuds lost award finalists at goalie and defenseman. It was a young team with one skater having significant ice time. On top of that, there was just 12 practices leading up to the opener and the start was rough with a 1-3-1 record. However, as the games played on that all changed. The Spuds have rattled off six wins in a row and are scoring in bunches with forwards Harper Bentz and Max Dronen leading the way with 47 points.

Head coach Jon Ammerman knew the team had what it takes it would just take time.

“Growth was really magnified in terms of how quickly guys were able to develop. We were playing two games a week and play some stiff competition throughout,” Ammerman said. “This group of kids specifically really bought in to be coached. They’ve done a great job of asking questions. We’ve been able to see a lot of things we’ve talked about in practice translate to games. They’ve really held each other accountable which is fun to see.”

“We’ve been the underdog the whole season. Everyone was doubting us this whole year,” Dronen said. “We lost 15 or 14 seniors last year. We came here with a very, very young group. We’ve just been relying on our leadership and some of the experience that we do have. Coach has done a really nice job with this group and were really excited to get going and prove ourselves at the state tournament.”

Moorhead going in unseeded and embracing that underdog mentality against the three seed Lakeville South who comes in undefeated. That face-off set for 1 p.M.

If the Spuds can advance, they’ll face the winner of Wayzata and the two seed, Hill-Murray in the semis on Friday.