Area Boys Hockey: Flippi’s hat trick not enough for Flyers in finals

ELK RIVER — A power-play goal in the second overtime was the difference for the No. 3 seeded St. Cloud Cathedral Crusaders who upset the top-seeded Little Falls Flyers 4-3 in the Section 5-1A Championship Wednesday, March 1.

Cathedral’s Andrew Dwinnell pounded his second goal of the game and 17th of the season past Flyers’ goalie Izaak Kallis at the 14:09 mark of the second overtime to send Cathedral to the Class 1A state tournament.

The Flyers owned a 3-0 lead thanks to Matt Filippi’s early hat trick. The senior scored at 2:30 of the first on an assist from Matthew Cooper. He then scored again at 4:57 of the first on a Joey Welinski assist.

Filippi started the scoring again in the second period with a tally at 3:15. Carter Oothoudt and Coltin Johnson both assisted on the even-strength goal.

Dwinnell then put the Crusaders on the board with a power-play goal at 12:29 of the second. Jaeger Wood snuck the puck in the net for Cathedral to make it a 3-2 game after two periods.

Landon Swenson of Cathedral tied the game at 10:12 of the third period. It was the only score of the final period of regulation.

Cathedral peppered Kallis with 58 shots on net compared to the Flyers' 27 shots on goal. Kallis, a freshman, kept Little Falls in the hunt for a section title as he corralled 54 saves.

The Flyer pulled off the regular-season sweep of Cathedral by defeating them 4-3 Feb. 2 and 4-2 Feb. 7, but Cathedral won the more-important third game to advance to state for the 11th time and first time since 2020.