The Mounds View girls’ hockey team needed five tries to win its first game this ­season.

For a team that started the previous season 22-0-1, the early struggles could have spelled disaster. Instead, they’re a big reason the ­Mustangs are headed to state for the second time in three years.

The Mustangs have fought adversity and embraced the role of underdog this season — two advantages they lacked last season. Mounds View entered last season’s Class 2A, Section 5 tournament as heavy favorites before losing to Irondale in the final.

That defeat gave the Mustangs a third advantage entering this year’s sections: ­motivation.

“Going into the offseason, the girls were so focused on playing our best hockey at the end of the year,” said Aaron Moberg, one of Mounds View’s two head coaches. “So once we got to the end of the year, there wasn’t a lot that needed to be said to motivate them.”

As the No. 3 seed in their section, the Mustangs avenged their loss to Irondale, the No. 2 seed, in the ­semifinals. Then they outplayed top-seeded Blaine in the final.

“We love the underdog role,” senior defenseman Bella Sutton said. “It’s a lot of fun because no one expects [success] except ourselves. … We’ve already accomplished many things no one thought we would.”

Both upset victories at sections came by one goal. In the regular season, Mounds View was 3-5 in one-goal games and played seven overtime games.

The team scheduled tougher opponents in 2013-14, resulting in more losses as the Mustangs went 14-8-3 in the regular season.

“We’ve been in those tight games and tough battles all year,” Sutton said, “so then when it came to sections, it was kind of like, ‘Oh, we’ve been here before.’ ”

Friday’s section final against Blaine was especially tough. Sophomore forward Sydney Brodt gave the Mustangs a 1-0 lead in the second period, and the Bengals tied the game less than three minutes later. But Mounds View never lost the momentum.

“During the whole year, we’ve been faced with a lot of adversity with coming back and getting goals like that scored on us,” Brodt said. “We weren’t nervous at all.”

Brodt and Sutton have led the team throughout the season, scoring 39 of its 79 goals. Sutton, a Ms. Hockey semifinalist, anchors an aggressive defense that has held opponents to fewer than two goals in 13 of its 17 victories.

But Moberg said the key to Mounds View’s success has been its “team-first mentality.” The Mustangs played three lines consistently at sections, unlike last year when they relied on five players to carry the scoring load.

“This year, there’s a ­different girl stepping up in every game,” Moberg said.

The coach cited sophomore Kristen Cash’s game-winner Friday against Blaine as an example. Cash had scored one goal in her high school career before that.

Three of Mounds View’s top five scorers graduated last year, but the Mustangs haven’t shown their inexperience. Moberg and Brodt said the team remained confident during its four-game winless streak to start the season.

“We still all had confidence when nobody else had confidence in our team,” Brodt said. “We knew that we could get better from that, and I think it really helped us ­during the season to start out like that.”

That confidence grew as Mounds View hit its stride in December. The Mustangs won seven of eight games following their slow start. They didn’t have a winless streak longer than two games the rest of the way.

Now, they’re riding a season-high five-game winning streak entering the state tournament, where they’ll be even bigger underdogs.

“Our confidence right now is at an all-time high,” Moberg said.

 

Charlie Armitz is a University of Minnesota student reporter on assignment for the Star Tribune.