Lake Conference rivals Hopkins and Wayzata met for a third time this season, with much more than the league standings on the line.
The third-seeded Royals faced the top-seeded Trojans in the Class 2A, Section 6 championship with the winner advancing to the state tournament.
The final meeting of the season turned out to be the best of the bunch with flashes of physical play, goalkeepers making clutch saves and overtime needed to decided the outcome.
Hopkins fizzled on an abundance of scoring chances in regulation time, but created fireworks when senior Corbin Boyd scored with 6:51 remaining in the sudden death overtime period to secure a state tournament berth for the Royals with a 2-1 win over the Trojans on Tuesday at Wayzata High School.
Boyd received a pass just outside Wayzata’s 6-yard box and buried a left-footed shot into the lower right corner, just past the reach of Trojans’ goalkeeper Kendall Koenen.
“I paused for a second and was pretty open,” Boyd said. “I just thought to myself that I am going to put it in the corner and we are going to win this game.”
Boyd had no doubts, and neither did her teammates.
“As soon as she got the ball, I knew it was going in,” Royals’ senior forward Rachael St. Clair said. “I don’t want to say it was inevitable that we were going to score, but it kind of was.”
Hopkins coach Keith Pavelka said he was confident Boyd was going to bury the shot, as well.
“She scores a lot of clutch goals for us and does so in hockey, too," he said. "So, I knew it was going to happen.”
The Royals needed the a goal as the Trojans grabbed a 1-0 lead when Bailee Hyde scored on a header in the first half.
Hopkins erased the deficit early in the second half.
St. Clair converted on a penalty kick to even the score with 35:22 remaining in the game.
The Royals then turned up the offensive pressure. The strategy nearly paid off in the closing minutes as the Royals fired a shot that seemed destined for the net but a Trojans’ defender cleared away the ball.
Wayzata stormed back in the final minute and had an opportunity to win but the Trojans' shot rang off the post.
Pavelka said losing to the Trojans on a late-game goal would have been difficult, especially after the Royals’ turned in their best second-half performance of the season.
“It would have been tough and, as a coach, sometimes you think about it and how you might not win this and it might just not be your night,” he said. “We pulled through and got Corbin (Boyd) scored when she got the chance.”
The section championship game was the third meeting of the year between Hopkins and Wayzata.
They split the regular season series, but this victory is much sweeter for the Royals.
“We’ve been wanting this for a long time,” St. Clair said. “We’ve been talking about getting to state since last year and to do it like this, I can’t even describe how good it feels.”
