The Sartell Sabres hockey team continues to make history for the third year in a row. Tuesday, February 6 the Brainerd Warriors came to Bernick’s Arena to try to spoil the Sabres conference championship dreams, but the Sabres prevailed.

The first period of this conference championship was everything it was drawn up to be, the Sartell student body filled Bernick’s arena with an electrifying energy. Despite all the support from the students, Brainerd did have the Sabres on their heels outshooting them 11-3. But senior goaltender Noah Hacker locked down his net, sending the game into the second period tied at 0-0.

The second period saw much more action, Brainerd’s star player Brady Johnson scored a shorthanded goal just 5 minutes and 18 seconds into the second period. However,  just 38 seconds later the Sabres responded with a power-play goal from Senior Defenseman, Wyatt Laidlaw, filling the Sabres bench and crowd with energy. After lots of back and forth action between these two teams, Sartell was able to take the lead for the first time in this game with a goal from Junior forward Caden Vos. The second period ended with the Sabres leading 2-1 and outshooting the Warriors that period 12-11. 

The final period of this electric matchup was riddled with penalties with both teams getting 2 penalties each. The back and forth action continued throughout the entirety of the third period. The Warriors were coming at the Sabres with everything they had but Senior goalie, Noah Hacker, stood tall the whole game and posted an impressive .969 save percentage, stopping 31 of 32 shots. With a last ditch effort the Warriors pulled their goalie to try and capitalize with an extra skater on the ice. However, freshman forward, Devin Jacobs capitalized on the empty net, giving the Sabres a 3-1 lead with 1:35 remaining in the game. The Warriors were determined to try and tie this game up and elected to pull their goalie again, this time it was Senior Forward Baylor Stebbins who scored the final goal, resulting in a 4-1 win for the Sabres. 

I was able to talk with Coach Hacker after the game, and gets his thoughts on the game and his team.  I asked him, if there’s anything about this team thats different then teams you’ve coached in the past, and what does winning the conference mean to you? Here’s what he had to say…