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Senior Leadership Critical for Young Boys' Hockey Team

By Staff, 01/21/20, 11:45AM CST

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Since the boys hockey season kicked off in November Coach Matt Funk and his senior captains have been stressing the importance of becoming a family and building relationships. It was important that the veterans on the team lead the way as when the puck dropped to open the season, 14 skaters on the varsity were making their Varsity debuts. The seniors are led by captain Matthew Gleason ’20, alternate captains Preston Thelemann ’20 and Jack Nei ’20, and other seniors Chris Walsh ’20, Will Weegman ’20, John Heisel ’20, and Jake Kircher ’20.

 When asked about his veteran leadership Funk is very honest about what he expects.  “We talk about having one heartbeat led by our group of 7 seniors. They have all battled for 4 years to earn this spot and it is important that we give them the best experience possible under their leadership. This is not a rebuild, but we needed to learn the Raider Way fast and our seniors were critical in that crash course for our young guys.”

 After a tough first weekend where they lost to Saint Thomas Academy and Eden Prairie, the Raiders have gone an impressive 13-1-1 and a perfect 10-0 in the conference. The Raiders had huge wins against Top 20 opponents Benilde-St Margaret’s, Blaine, and Stillwater during that stretch, but no game was more evident of the 1 heartbeat than an impressive tie on the road against a very good Hermantown team. The Raiders battled back from an early 3-0 deficit and late 5-3 deficit to salvage a tie scoring 2 goals in the last minute and forty seconds. The Raiders entered the week rated #7 in the state with 8 games remaining.

 The Raider seniors are leading the way with Gleason leading the state in scoring with 53 points and registering two key milestones along the way. He passed Chris Hickey ’06 for #1 in CDH history for career goals surpassing Hickey’s previous record of 100 goals. He now has 112 and counting. He also moved into the top 75 in MSHSL history for scoring surpassing 200 points in his career. Senior Jack Nei is second in the team scoring averaging 2 points a game, Preston Thelemann is leading the defensive core in points with 17, and Chris Walsh is leading in +/- which measures the amount of time a player is out for goals for vs goals against.

 However, Cretin-Derham Hall’s success this season has also benefited from the play of newcomers such as Drew Fisher ’22, Jake Sondreal ’22, Zach Sondreal ’22, Gabe Rasmussen ’22 and goalie Marko Belak ’22. All have contributed to the team’s success thus far.

“The seniors have been great bringing the younger players along and that is one of the main reasons we are sitting in a good position right now. We have skill guys that can play on the other side of that and great depth on our lines. I think if we stick to our system and stay disciplined, we’ll continue our success from last year to this year.”

The team is excited about the progress they have made, but they still have a lot to accomplish as they move towards the end of January and beyond. Funk knows he needs to keep his group grounded “we talk about not being satisfied with where we are and to always Aim Higher. We have a lot of hockey left and our goal is to begin playing until the very end.” The Raider Hockey Family knows the end goal and with the seniors showing them the way, they are excited about what lies ahead.

 Currently CDH is 13-3-1 on the season and currently ranked #7 in the state rankings.

Follow the hockey team on Twitter at @cdhhockey