Saturday's win was the just the second for Roseville in postseason play in the five seasons Cave has served as coach — and both came this season, starting with a 2-1 win over Osseo on Thursday. And both victories for the Raiders continued their season-long string of down-to-the-wire finishes.

"We beat Eastview with two minutes left, and we beat Mounds View [in the regular season] with two minutes left," Cave explained. "We beat Woodbury with a minute and 30 seconds left. We won against Osseo in our section game with 39 seconds left. That's what we do. We just knew we would win this game."

Roseville, the section’s No. 2-seed, fell behind when No. 3-seeded Mounds View's Lillian Nowatzke scored at 9:53 of the first period. But Tuominen tied the game by quickly taking a free kick and scoring at the 13:20 mark.

From there the two teams traded scoring chances in a match affected by steady winds whipping the stadium as well as intermittent rain and snow flurries that generally put the team defending the east goal on the defensive.

"There was a huge advantage, when you were playing with the wind, to hit huge balls to run onto," Mounds View coach Katelynn Fast said. "When you were playing against the wind, those big balls would stop and drop. We tried to keep it on the ground against the wind."

Fast said her team also had to adjust when Tuominen switched roles during the match.

"[Tuominen] is a very talented player, and when she moved from the centerback to more of a midfield role, that took away a bit of our attack," Fast said.

Neither team scored in the second half, nor in two overtime periods, which sent the game to penalty kicks.

"Coach came to me and said, 'You're going to shoot first and score to put the pressure on the other team,'" Tuominen said. "So making the first goal, and then saving the first goal, really set the tone."

Tuominen scored first, but the key play was a save Raiders goalkeeper Bella DiGiorno made on Nowatzke, the first shooter for the Mustangs.

"I play with [Nowatzke] in club, so it was a big deal to me to get that stop," DiGiorno said. "I knew I could stop it, and when I did it I was really excited. It set the tone for us."

Roseville then got PK goals from Kimi LaPalm, Ava Benson and Raylee Wallis to win the shootout 4-2 and improve to 11-5-1 on the season with its fourth straight win.

"I hope that reaching the section final is the new expectation for this program," Tuominen said. "When we scored the PK goal to win, I thought, 'Am I dreaming?' It was insane and awesome."

Meanwhile it was a heartbreaking loss for the Mustangs, who saw a six-game winning streak snapped and finished the season 11-7.

"We're coming off a season where we went 2-10-2, and we have a lot of young players," said Fast, who noted that her varsity roster included just three seniors. "Seeing our girls play with confidence, and finishing the season with six shutouts before today, has us excited about what we accomplished this season and how we're going to build into next season."

The Raiders advance to the Class 2A, Section 5 championship against top-seeded Champlin Park on Tuesday. After years of early exits, there’s now some added pressure for a team raising the bar.

"In the last four years there never was pressure on us, because we were never seeded higher than sixth," Cave said. "We had nothing to lose.

“But I would guarantee that we're not satisfied,” he continued, “and that we're going to try and set winning a section title as the 'new normal.'”