St. Paul, MN - The Warroad Warriors held the top ranking for most of the season and entered the Minnesota State Class A tournament as the top seed.  The Warriors faced off against the New Ulm Eagles in quarterfinal round play at the Xcel Energy Center on Wednesday evening and earned a hard fought 5-0 victory.  

Sophomore Hannah Corneliusen scored her 39th and 40th goals of the season while senior Madison Oelkers added a goal and assist to help lead Warroad to the win.  

The Warriors (23-3-2) opened the scoring at 12:21 on junior Tiffani Foster’s 5th goal of the season.  Foster took a nice feed from behind the net by junior McKenzie Oelkers as she spun off defensive coverage from the Eagles to bury the puck past sophomore Eagle goaltender Cassie Reed.  Alexis Moat for the 1-0 lead.

The Warriors outshot the Eagles (23-5-1)  by a 10-4 margin for the first period yet, both teams were even regarding puck possession and zone time.

Corneliusen took advantage of an Eagle turn over at the New Ulm blue line, raced in, and beat Moat for the 2-0 lead 3:53 of the second period for her first of two.  Corneliusen struck again 5:30 later by making a slick move through an Eagle defenders legs and finding the back of the net for her second of the game as her team took a 3-0 lead to the period break.

The Warriors killed off an Eagle power play to open the third period and scored a pair of quick goals.  The first was sophomore Tahra Johnson who launched a long shot that deflected off an Eagle defender’s stick and past Reed.  Just :10 later another New Ulm turnover was deposited into the back of the Eagle net by Madison Oelkers to open up a commanding 5-0 lead.

Warrior goaltender Quinn Kuntz turned aside 19 shots to earn the shutout, and her team has put together an 11 game winning streak where they have allowed a remarkable 4 goals against.  

Warroad advanced to the semi-final round with a game against the winner of St. Paul United or Alexandria on Friday afternoon at 1pm.  The Warriors have been regulars in the tournament with this year marking their 9th since 2006 and they will be looking to appear in the final for the 6th time in that span.  The Eagles will play the loser of the St. Paul United Alexandria game Thursday at noon.