With nine talented seniors coming back along with a another pool of skilled underclassmen, the Morris/Benson Area boys hockey team knew it could do something special this season.
Even though the Storm are 11-1, they're a little disapointed at themselves for losing so early in the season.
"We expected to be this good with the nine seniors back," said MBA coach Mike Conboy. "The guys are deep in skills and strong players."
The Storm, a strong contender to capture the Section 4A crown, opened the season by winning their first seven games, outscoring their opponents 49-10 in the process. After opening the Little Falls tournament with an 8-0 win over Becker/Big Lake, MBA fell to St. Michael-Albertville 3-2 in the semifinals. The Storm bounced back to blank Minneapolis South 7-0 in the third-place game and haven't lost since.
"They didn't think that they would have lost that early in the season, but I think it brings them back down to earth," said Conboy of the loss to St. Michael-Albertville. "We got down in the first period and were playing catch-up for the rest of game and we just didn't get it done."
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With the help of junior center Tony Schultz, MBA's leading scorer with 27 points, the Storm, who don't belong to a conference, have outscored their opponents 77-20 on the season. Schultz has netted a team-high 18 goals while assisting on nine others. Junior right wing Jay Andrews leads the team with 15 assists and also has seven goals. Schultz and Andrews, along with junior left wing Josh Griffith who has eight goals and six assists, make up the Storm's first line.
The second consists of senior Jake Erickson centering senior left wing Mack Grunig and senior right wing Mitch Kleespies. Those three have combined to supply the Storm with 23 goals and 15 assists.
"We have two strong scoring lines and the third (senior center Pat Murphy, senior left wing Zach Staples and right wings Jordan Lee, a sophomore, and David Holte, a junior) can also get it done," said Conboy. "We knew coming into the season that we would be a solid team and a challenging team in the section."
Senior goalie Mitch Grunig is the benaficary of all of the support. Grunig has posted a section-high four shutouts and also leads the section with a save percentage of 93 percent.
Helping make Grunig's job a little easier are junior defensemen Carl Lindblad, Jake Knutson and Charles Michealson and senior defenseman Kevin Moses.
Students from Benson (seven) and Morris (six) make up most of the varsity roster, but there are also two from MACCRAY (senior defensemen Mark Conboy and Ross Swenson) and two from Hancock (the Grunig twins). It's the fifth year that Morris and Benson consolidated for hockey.
One of the biggest games of the season for the Storm will be on Feb. 10 when they play at Little Falls (11-1-1), another strong team contending for the section title.
