St. Cloud Cathedral downed Little Falls 4-3 in double overtime in its section final in 2023, a game Crusaders coach Robbie Stocker dubbed the craziest hockey game he’d ever been a part of.

He assumed that would never be topped.

Then came Friday’s Class A state semifinal, where the Crusaders rallied from deficits of 2-0 and 3-2 to down second-seeded Warroad 4-3 in overtime and move into Saturday’s state final.

“It only took a year to make a change at the top,” Stocker said. “That was probably the craziest game I’ve been a part of — very fun.”

John Hirschfeld put away the winner for third-seeded St. Cloud Cathedral (25-4-1) two minutes into the extra session.

“We all crashed, there was a nice rebound and finished it,” he said.

It was his second score of the afternoon, with the first knotting the game late in regulation on a play where the forward stayed on the puck through multiple attempts to move him off it and flipped it past the goaltender to equalize the score with just 69 seconds to play.

That Hirschfeld — who’s had multiple brothers come through the program — was the hero was of little surprise to Stocker.

“He’s seen a lot of state tournaments, he’s seen state championships, he’s seen this moment a lot. Probably played that scenario in his head, being in the X, watching his brothers do the same thing. Sometimes you visualize that, I think you can manifest it into reality,” Stocker said. “Him finding the puck, just being tenacious on the puck, that’s just who he is as a player.”

Stocker called Hirschfeld “the hardest-working guy on the team.”

“He doesn’t take a drill off ever,” the coach said. “(Thursday), I had to tell him, ‘You can’t work this hard in practice, because we have the state semifinal tomorrow. Which, as a coach, that’s a great problem to have.”

Hirschfeld’s heroics removed any doubt from a result that might have been slightly controversial otherwise. That’s because Ryan Shaugabay’s rebound goal that put the Warriors up 3-2 with 7:30 to play was originally waved off, as the official seemed to blow the whistle after losing sight of the puck before it crossed the goal line. But replay officials granted the goal after a review.

“Yeah, we felt a little adversity there. We felt maybe it wouldn’t have been a goal,” Stocker said. “But we understand it is what it is, and we just have to push through as a group and never get too high or too low on anything like that. … Just kind of pushed it behind us and went back to work.”

Friday marked Warroad’s third consecutive state semifinal appearance. Each have gone to overtime — though this was the first of those that didn’t go the way of the Warriors (24-6), who placed second in each of the previous two state tournaments.

“I’ve been on both sides of it. They’ve all been unbelievable games,” Warroad coach Jay Hardwick said. “It’s just a bounce one way or just one play that we didn’t make. That’s the way it goes. That’s how life goes. But I can’t fault our effort, for sure.”