With Breck leading Blake 3-2 in the third period of Thursday night’s Class A, Section 5 finals, the Mustang faithful hoped that history could be ignored.

The four previous seasons where the Bears had broken the hearts and terminated the dreams of their Mustangs were briefly forgotten for the eight minutes Breck held their lead.

But history has a way of asserting itself. Subtly at first, and then all at once and over and over again until the final buzzer sounds and it feels just like last year.

Blake sophomore Madeline Wethington tied the game at 3-3 with eight minutes left in regulation, and junior C.C. Wallin scored two-and-a-half minutes later to give the Bears their first lead, which spiraled into a 5-4 victory and another trip to St. Paul.

Sara McClanahan scored the first two goals for the Bears.

Nichole Oppenheimer also added a goal for the Mustangs (19-6-3), pulling Breck within one with 14.7 seconds remaining.

“The message the whole game was the same,” Blake head coach Shawn Reid said after the win. “That every time we play this game, it’s gonna be a roller coaster,” Reid continued. “A roller coaster of emotion, a roller coaster of back-and-forth, we knew some sort of adversity was going to happen.”

Adversity struck Blake during a stretch of the second period, where it had a goal waived off, Breck’s Mobley scored her second goal, and the Bears failed to convert on a five-on-three power play advantage.

Through the rough patch, Reid remained stoic.

“When they were reviewing the goal, I told the girls there’s no video review,” Reid said. “If they waive it off just go to the face-off dot.”

Wallin, who as a junior is one of just seven upperclassmen in the Bears lineup, said that Reid’s balance behind the bench helps temper the players’ emotions.

“It’s really nice for us to have a calm force, especially when all the girls are so high-strung,” Wallin said.

Wallin and the Bears (24-2-1) have come into their own during the 2016-2017 campaign, having done so without graduated forward Carly Bullock, who scored 10 goals in last season’s state tournament and 58 over the course of the season.

“The whole team has really stepped up this year,” Reid said. “We had two new players who’ve done an incredibly good job, so it’s really a team effort.”

Even more daunting for opponents of the Bears, who have been ranked No. 1 all season, is that goals are not primarily coming from a single source, as five players have recorded 10 or more tallies.

“The key this year has been to play as a team and to pass to each other,” Wallin said. “It’s not a one-man show.”