Santa Margarita wins 2nd consecutive Div 1 High School National championship

[lcadad]

Santa Margarita avenged their loss in the championship game 2 years ago, beating 6x consecutive PA state champion Rustin, in the semi-finals 6-3.  Rustin declined to play in the Nationals championship last year.


SM went on to defeat the previously undefeated Edina, MN team 4-1 in the finals to repeat as USA Division 1 High School national champions.  Edina came in as Minnesota Jr Gold champions, with a ridiculous 39-1-2 record including regular season wins over teams like Shattuck Varsity, and had edged SM 2-1 in pool play.


St. John Bosco went 1 - 2 in Division 2 pool play including a tough 4-5 opening round loss to pool winner and eventual semi finalist Frisco.


Overall, nice results for the Ducks OC high school league representatives, and certainly shows that California is producing some really good hockey players, despite the recent exodus.   

[Pop]

That was not Edina’s varsity team.  That team was their Jr Gold team consisting of players cut from varsity and jv.  In MN when kids are cut from varsity and jv they play Jr Gold in the Metro Hockey League. That team beat Shattucks #2 team not a their prep team.  Edina varsity has 6-7 D1 commits on it and there is not a team in CA that could compete with them. 

[lcadad]

That was not Edina’s varsity team.  That team was their Jr Gold team consisting of players cut from varsity and jv.  In MN when kids are cut from varsity and jv they play Jr Gold in the Metro Hockey League. That team beat Shattucks #2 team not a their prep team.  Edina varsity has 6-7 D1 commits on it and there is not a team in CA that could compete with them.

Thanks for that clarification. 


I figured that it goes without saying that there is a level beyond High school hockey that the Prep schools play which is not represented in the USA Hockey system, and this is where most D1 recruiting is coming from, if not from AAA and Jr's. 


There are a lot of AAA players sprinkled throughout the teams represented, but overall, it's good to point out that these teams are not going to be competitive with your whose/who of Prep school teams, and I probably gave the wrong impression when I brought up Shattuck.


In general, High school hockey for most of the participants in the USA Hockey high school nationals is the end of the line although some kids do go on to D3 college and occasionally D1. 

[RW]

Close but not completely true.  The Jr Gold A Edina players are the kids that did not make the Varsity teams. That’s correct.  They did not however get cut from JV. Jr Gold A is a higher level than JV.  So is Jr Gold B   Also keep in mind that some schools like Edina have over 100 kids trying out for Varsity and so there are some very talented kids that don’t get one of the 24 Varsity spots.

[Pop]

That is false. High school and jv tryouts are held before Jr Gold tryouts. High school tryouts are held beginning of Nov, with the top kids forming a varsity and jv team. The kids that don’t make varsity or jv then have to join USAH (MN Hs does not belong to USAH). Those kids then tryout for the Jr Gold program if they want to continue playing(always a few that want to quit). Larger associations like Edina will have Jr Gold tryouts and have an A team and a B team and also a U16 team.  Smaller associations like Elk River (Paul Martins home) will not have tryouts and just have a B team.  There isn’t a class A high school with a JrG team, based on numbers some class A schools don’t even have jv team. Edina’s JrG A team could beat a bunch of class A high schools jv and some class A varsity teams.  They just don’t have the depth of most class A varsity teams. 


Top AA varsity teams will scrimmage Shattuck Prep. Sometimes winning, and usually competing, but generally don’t have the depth of SSM.  SSM does play in MNs fall preseason High School Elite League though.  MN hs hockey is at its own level.  Each year there are kids that turn down Athe National Development Team and kids that will do a “before and after” in the USHL, meaning they play some USHL games before hs season then play their hs season and go back and to USHL after hs season.  They will also lose some kids to USHL because college coaches want at least on year of jr, and the kid want to start school as a true freshman. 


CA should be proud of the level of high school hockey being played by CA teams.  MN is no different then CA in that almost all the kids will be done playing meaningful hockey at 18. And there is nothing better then playing in a full rowdy areana in front of your peers.

[RW]

Interesting. Hard to argue with someone who is obviously more informed than I. It was just explained differently to me by an Edina parent recently.


Anyway, congrats the Santa Margarita kids, coaches and parents.  Great accomplishment for them.

[lcadad]

I think the truth is closer to RW's comment.  Edina has ridiculous depth as pointed out, but even so has had players progress from Jr Gold A to Varsity in subsequent years.  There is no debate that the Edina varsity team is on another level, but that also makes the Jr Gold A team a lot better as shown by their results.  The team most likely skews younger than much of their competition, but Jr Gold A players routinely make varsity as Jr's or Sr's.  When you have a 100 kids trying out for 20 spots, that just isn't the case anywhere else but the Prep school hockey factories that are recruiting far and wide.  I also have to point out the simple fact that Edina is an AA (large school) and a perennial favorite who just won again this year for the 4rd time in something like the last 10 years.  It's not like SM beat a bunch of scrubs from one of the lower 400 ranked MN schools.

[Pop]

Edina and many metro teams don’t allow seniors on jv.  And many programs like Edina have 80+ kids trying out for varsity. And kids don’t routinely go from JrG to varsity. My friend has to sons playing in Edina. One is a sophomore #2 defense pairing on their varsity already committed to D1 team in MN.  The other is a jr on jv. The jr was on JrG A last year, cut from both. Made jv this year, and according to dad will play JrG next year(no chance of making varsity).   


There is a stigma with playing JrG in MN.  It used to be for the potheads and other kids not interested in school sanctioned sports with all the rules with grades and everything else that goes with varsity sports. Fighting was common and hockey was low level.  Last 10 years or so it has changed for the better. The league has really cleaned itself up and the hockey has improved.  But the stigma is still there(undeserving).  Kids in MN grow up wanting to play for their hs so it is a disappointment for them when they hit cut(parents too). They started going to nationals a few years ago as a bonus and incentives for playing JrG, the first year they sent 2 teams Edina(state champs) and Wazata(state runner up). Wazata beat Edina for National Championship. The following year Edina didn’t go because it was held over spring break and the parent didn’t want to go to the city hosting it for spring break.   


There are around 120 hs teams in MN with the top 64 in enrollment size playing class AA and small schools have the option of playing up,  Top JrG teams would beat the bottom class A schools jv hat don’t have jv and only have enough for 2-3 varsity lines. But they will not beat the upper class AA schools. 


Edina’s depth is had to beat. Hell their bantam B2 has a dad coach from CA that moved to Edina in hs (mid 80’s) then played for WI and in the AHL.  But there are many MN teams that beat Edina’s top teams.  Edina’s AA and A bantams didn’t win state this year.

[Maverick]

Now this is why I look at Cal Hockey.  Most of us will never hear about the details of the Santa Margarita win like we did here.    Thanks for the clarification of who SM played and beat.  Congrats to them, still an accomplishment taking the Junior Gold title in my book. 

[RW]

To add more context.  Four of SM’s top six forwards at the tournament were sophomores. One other top sophomore forward who is fairly well known didn’t go to Nationals.  Their starting goalie is a Sophomore. One of their top 4 D is a Sophomore. Another is a junior and a third pairing D is a freshman.  They all played huge minutes in Cleveland. That’s from a parent on the team.  Pretty impressive for that group to do what they did.