Amery allowed an early pair of back-to-back goals and couldn’t capitalize on later opportunities in falling to Northland Pines 4-0 in the Division 2 title game of the Wisconsin boys state high school hockey tournament Saturday.

Bolstered by the early lead, Northland Pines goalie Everett Leslie turned away 24 shots. The fourth-seeded Warriors, who were shut out for the first time this season, also hurt themselves with 12 penalties, including 11 in the final two periods.

“I thought if we could get one and make it difficult on them, who knows what can happen?” Amery coach Matt Humpal said. “We had some chances. There were a couple where I’m looking right down at the goal, right in line, and they just missed. Wide-open nets.

“We didn’t do that very much this year,” he said. “We scored a lot of goals. And to get shut out in a game, kudos to their goalie.”

Amery (20-9) lost to Tomahawk 5-3 in the title game last year in its first trip to state. The Warriors earned a return trip after starting this season 5-5. Northland Pines (22-6), with just three seniors on its roster, won its first state title since 1989 in a single-division tournament.

Northland Pines set the tone with a pair of goals 47 seconds apart four minutes in.

Josh Graves, who had two goals in the Eagles’ 3-2 comeback win over Somerset/St. Croix in the semifinals, took a centering pass in the slot and punched it in for a 1-0 lead with 3:28 gone.

The Eagles quickly made it to 2-0 when Bodie Bakken flipped the puck out while falling to the ice behind the Amery net. Jazek Jantzen tapped to Michael Schmidt for another goal from the slot.

Amery, which upended top-seeded Waunakee 3-1 in the semifinals, was unable to recover despite stretches of controlling play.

“Any time you go up 2-0 like that, you kind of have the ability to dictate how the game is played,” Northland Pines coach Zach Otto said. “Especially going into the third period. We knew all we had to do was not let any red jerseys behind us.”

The Warriors were whistled for seven penalties in the second period, and that eventually cost them. Amery killed the first 5-on-3 situation, but the Eagles capitalized 10 seconds into the second two-player advantage when Graves scored on a rebound to make it 3-0 with 6:09 left in the period.

Five minutes into the final period, Carter Meyer kept the Warriors within three with a save on a penalty shot by Graves, who scored the third-period tying goal against Somerset/St. Croix Falls on a penalty shot.

Northland Pines punctuated the victory with a long empty-net goal by Cooper Saari with 1:07 left.

“I figured we were going to get one like always,” said senior tri-captain Jacob Maxon. “We scored quite a few goals this year, so I wasn’t expecting to get shut out. But it’s hard to get goals when you take as many penalties as we did.”

Under the penalty induced pressure, Amery goalie Carter Meyer registered 29 saves, including 22 over the final two periods.

Amery had the final six shots of the first period, and Leslie had two point-blank saves in the closing minutes of the second.

“Hats off to them. They put the pressure on us,” Otto said. “There was definitely points of the game where they controlled parts of it.”

“They had some great opportunities that went wide of the net, as well, and then when Evrett is shutting down prime opportunities, too, it’s always nice.”

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The Tommies’ NCAA tournament hopes were dashed Saturday in Sioux Falls, S.D., as fifth-seeded St. Thomas fell 63-51 to North Dakota State in the Summit League women’s basketball tournament semifinals.

The Tommies had hoped to make a Cinderella run of sorts to punch the program’s first-ever ticket to the Division-I Big Dance in legendary coach Ruth Sinn’s final season on the bench. But the top-seeded Bison had other ideas.

The Tommies simply couldn’t generate enough offense against the Bison. While St. Thomas shot 60% from deep, it attempted just five free throws and turned the ball over a whopping 22 times, which generated 25 points going the other way for the Bison.

St. Thomas scored just seven points in the second quarter.

Avery Koenen, the conference’s player of the year, led North Dakota State with 31 points and eight rebounds.

Still, the Tommies trailed by just five to open the final frame. Yet an 8-0 Bison run over the first 75 seconds of the fourth quarter effectively put the game out of reach.

Jada Hood paced the Tommies with 17 points, while Alyssa Sand added 15 points and seven rebounds.

The Bison swept their three matchups against St. Thomas this season. North Dakota State, the league’s regular season champion, will play for the conference’s automatic NCAA tournament bid on Sunday at 3 p.m.

It’s possible Saturday marked Sinn’s final game on the St. Thomas sidelines, though the Tommies (16-16) could feasibly still play in a postseason tournament.

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DENVER — In his first 48 hours as a member of the Minnesota Wild, defenseman Jeff Petry got a taste of the excitement and the reality of life with his latest NHL employer.

The excitement comes via his move from Florida, which is likely to be a spectator when the playoffs start next month. Minnesota, meanwhile, is all but a lock for the postseason and has designs on much more than just a playoff spot.

The reality came Friday night in Las Vegas, where Petry watched much of the Wild’s 4-2 win over the Golden Knights from the T-Mobile Arena press box. He’s one of the odd men out on a team that, when fully healthy, will have some tough choices to make about who makes the line chart on any given night.

Meeting with the Minnesota media for the first time on Friday afternoon, Petry acknowledged that reality.

“They’ve obviously put themselves in a good position with the crew that they have,” Petry said, acknowledging that the Wild were upfront about his role when they called to welcome him to Minnesota. “Whether that’s me stepping in, playing a handful here and there, whatever the situation is, that’s something that I’m fully ready to be with. (I’m) just excited to be a part of this and help the team in any way that I can.”

It is said that nobody in the NHL is fully healthy at this point in an 82-game season and, indeed, the Wild traveled to Nevada and Colorado without veteran forwards Marcus Johansson and Marcus Foligno. Those absences, and the departure of fourth-liner Vinnie Hinostroza in a trade to Florida, made it easy for Wild coach John Hynes to slot in new players Bobby Brink, Robby Fabbi and Michael McCarron versus Vegas.

One game into the new-look roster, Hynes already had to make the call to sit Petry, a veteran with more than 1,000 NHL games on his resume, and he knows he may have to do the same with McCarron, Nick Foligno or other pre-trade members of the roster down the final stretch of the regular season.

“It’s gonna happen,” Hynes said before the Vegas game. “It’s just being direct and honest. When you get in a situation like we’re in, where we’ve added players at the deadline, which the team deserved, then we want to give ourselves the best chance to have a strong last 20 games and get our game going and be ready for the playoffs.”

Some nights that might mean veterans like Johansson, Marcus Foligno, Ryan Hartman or others sitting when they’re otherwise good to go. Much like the friendly and respectful competition for playing time that drives goalie tandems, Hynes sees healthy rivalries on his new roster as players work to get noticed and find a spot in the game-night lineup.

McCarron was the most noticeable contributor right away, netting a goal and an assist while using his 6-foot-6 frame along the walls to be a disruptor — his primary job. Although when Brink was run from behind into the boards in the second period, Brock Faber took it upon himself to drop the gloves with the Vegas offender, earning a fighting major and a 10-minute misconduct.

In that action alone, from one of the Wild’s most skilled defensemen, McCarron saw an example of the roster he has joined, and the every night work that will be expected to guarantee playing time now and in the playoffs.

“It just shows everybody has each other’s back. Everybody trusts each other,” McCarron said. “It’s awesome to see Faber do that.”

Faber, for his part, was happy to play enforcer even for just a minute or so. But he didn’t like the aftermath.

“That was a long time in the box,” he said. “I don’t like doing that.”

But as the fully loaded Wild barrel headlong toward the playoffs, being an observer instead of a doer sometimes is one of the realities of this roster.

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