By John Rittenhouse
A penalty-plagued performance by the Luverne boys’ hockey team led to an early exit from the Section 1A Tournament Thursday.
Playing No. 7 Waseca in a preliminary-round game in Waseca Thursday, the 11th-seeded Cardinals proved to be their own worst enemies as they were whistled for 10 penalties in the game.
Waseca took advantage of the situation to net one power-play goal in what ended as a 4-1 victory for the hosts.
Waseca advanced to Saturday’s quarterfinals with the win. The loss ended Luverne’s 13-9-1 season.
"We had 10 penalties, and you can’t win playoff games playing like that," said Cardinal coach Lee Chaffee. "We didn’t even have a chance to be creative, because there always seemed to be one of our players in the penalty box."
Waseca took a 2-0 lead in the first period before Luverne struck with a goal with less than one second remaining in the stanza.
Eric Lammert scored the goal with two-tenths of a second left in the period. Andy Hess received an assist for the goal.
Waseca went on to score one goal in the second and third periods to prevail by three.
Waseca outshot LHS 29-22 in the game. Cody Gehrke made 25 saves in goal for the Cards.
