The quest for the Class 1A girls hockey state title didn’t get off to a smooth start for Breck.

“Because of the weather on Wednesday [Feb. 18], it took us an hour and 20 minutes to get to Grand Casino Arena,” Breck coach Tricia Luoma said. “We got into our locker room with 24 minutes to get on the ice for warmups. It wasn’t our cleanest game, but it allowed us to get the nerves out before playing Blake on Friday [Feb. 20].”

Their 8-2 quarterfinal victory over St. Cloud advanced the Mustangs to a semifinal matchup against rival Blake.

“This was our fourth time playing Blake this season,” Luoma said. “No matter how either team’s season is going, we are rivals, and both teams bring their play up a couple of notches. Blake never gave up, but we were able to hold them off and win 3-2.”

Their fourth victory of the season over Blake gave the Mustangs a rematch with No. 1 seed Warroad for the state championship. On Dec. 6 in Warroad, the Warriors defeated the Mustangs 3-1. It was the Mustangs’ only loss of the season.

In the rematch, Luoma said, “both teams left it all on the ice.”

“Warroad is a great hockey team,” she said. “We came out like deer in headlights and were fortunate to weather the first seven minutes of the first period as Warroad came out to play.”

The Mustangs’ Molly Larson scored with less than three minutes remaining in the first period to give Breck a 1-0 lead. Mackenna Schlieman scored a shorthanded goal in the second period for a 2-0 lead going into the third.

“They scored to make it 2-1 earlier than we were comfortable with,” Luoma said. “Clara [Milinkovich] continued to make incredible saves and Ashley [Babbitt] scored on a beautiful sequence from Mack [Schlieman] and Taylor [Hall] to go up 3-1.”

Schlieman’s empty-net goal with 39 seconds remaining sealed the 4-1 victory, which gave the Mustangs their first state title since 2020.

The loss to the Warriors in December, which came after the Mustangs opened the season with seven consecutive victories, provided the Mustangs with insight.

“We learned a lot from our loss to Warroad,” Luoma said. “Watching the video, we identified a couple of key areas that we needed to solidify if we wanted to be successful and compete with top teams.”

The loss was followed by four consecutive victories before a 1-1 tie with Dodge County on Dec. 30. The Mustangs finished the season with 17 consecutive victories.

The Mustangs went into the season with a core group of returners from a team that won 17 games last season.

“To be honest, we knew we would be older and wiser, but I do not think any of us thought we would go 28-1-1 this season,” Luoma said. “We had not made it past the section semifinal the last four seasons, so our goal was to be one game better than last year. Once we won the section championship, we started to believe we could make a run at state.”

The state title was the fifth in program history. The Mustangs won titles in 2012, 2018, 2019 and 2020.

“We are so incredibly proud of this team,” said Luoma, who is in her fifth season as the Mustangs coach. “They came together as a team, and each player did their part to bring home the state championship.”