East Grand Forks, tucked up in Minnesota’s northwest corner, is about a five-hour drive from St. Paul. But an outsider at Saturday’s Class 1A boys hockey title game might have thought it was just down the road.

Grand Forks hero for life,” coach Tyler Palmiscno said when introducing the senior forward at Saturday’s postgame news conference. Van Eps scored from a sharp angle 1:46 into overtime, and East Grand Forks beat St.

After surrendering the game-tying goal to St. Cloud Cathedral with 47 seconds left in regulation, East Grand Forks delivered a winner less than two minutes into overtime. Senior forward Jace Van Eps was the hero,

Senior Jace Van Eps was the overtime hero, scoring on a sharp-angle shot along the goal line after capitalizing on a rebound chance.

East Grand Forks couldn’t have picked a better time to play its best hockey, a span of a half dozen games that ended with a crescendo in the No. 4-seeded Green Wave’s 2-1 overtime victory over No. 2 St.

The first of two Minnesota high school state boys hockey championships will get under way on Saturday afternoon. St. Cloud Cathedral takes on East Grand Forks for the Minnesota State High School League Class A championship from the Xcel Energy Center from St.