The West Eagles and Dimond Lynx won semifinal games Thursday night to advance to Saturday’s championship game of the Cook Inlet Conference hockey tournament.
West shut out Eagle River 3-0 at Ben Boeke Arena and Dimond tripped South 3-1 at the McDonald Center.
The winners will play for the CIC title Saturday at 6:30 p.m. at Ben Boeke.
Two games are on tap Friday night. South and Eagle River will meet in the third-place game at 6:30 at Ben Boeke, and Chugiak and Service will tangle at 7:15 at the McDonald Center. The winner of the fifth-place game will join West, Dimond, South and Eagle River at next week’s Division I state tournament.
In West’s semifinal victory, Nicko Opinsky assisted on all three goals and goalie Will Simpson only had to turn back six shots for the top-seeded Eagles. Goals came from Ian Keim, Aiden Fitzgerald and Matthew Patchin.
Ryan Grey made 29 saves for fourth-seeded Eagle River.
The other semifinal provided Dimond with a bit of payback. Dimond and South tied for second place during the regular season and South earned the tournament’s No. 2 seed by winning the tiebreaker, which gave the Wolverines a bye into Thursday’s game and put third-seeded Dimond in a Tuesday quarterfinal.
Lynx goalie Hunter Katness made 29 saves in a duel with South netminder Hannah Hogenson, who stopped 30 shots. Tristan Bernsten, Teague Porter and Landen Reed scored for Dimond, which led 2-1 after the second period. Lucas Wilcox scored on the power play for South.