When most high school hockey teams enter into a Top 5 opponent’s building and find themselves in a 1-0 hole early, it’s nearly impossible for them to come back. But Cretin-Derham Hall isn’t like most teams-- and it’s time for everyone to start taking notice.

The #6 Cretin-Derham Hall Raiders scored a whopping 10 unanswered goals to soundly defeat the #5 Holy Family Fire on Saturday afternoon at Victoria Ice Center. They also improved to 16-2-1 on the season.  Senior captain Joe Buckingham feels like this is only the beginning of a deep run for CDH.

“I think we have a really good chance of making a deep run in sections. “It’ll be a great opportunity for us to show our depth and skills, not only individually, but as a team.”

The Raiders have now rattled off an impressive 12 straight wins, which includes victories over #7 White Bear Lake and #5 Holy Family. Their last loss? To then #1 Edina, way back on December 19th. “Our team chemistry has been huge to our success”, Buckingham says. “When I look around the locker room, we are all best friends with each other. When we work as a team, we are unstoppable. We all play for each other”.

Although things have been great for CDH lately, they know it only get more challenging from here. The Raiders face perhaps their hardest challenge this season when they take on their biggest rivals, the #2 Saint Thomas Academy Cadets, on Wednesday at Highland Arena. “We’ve had this date marked on our calendars all season long”, says Buckingham. “We’ve waited for the day to come and it’s finally coming. The environment is going to be great. The boys will be ready to go.”

A win over STA would certainly put CDH amongst the favorites to make the class AA tournament. For now, only time will tell if CDH can clinch its first state tournament appearance since 2009.