Benilde-St. Margaret's Boys' Hockey

Benilde-St. Margaret's started out sluggishly but scored five times in the second period and cruised to an 8-2 win over Lakeville North in the first round of the Sports Authority Holiday Hockey Classic.

The Red Knights were slow to get going early but they turned to scoring leader Grant Besse and the school's all-time scoring leader didn't disappoint, turning in a four-goal effort which moved him into sole possession of 12th place on the state's all-time goal-scoring list with 133.

T.J. Moore, who had missed three of the team's last four games, got a key power-play goal seven minutes into the second period to give BSM a 2-0 lead but a major penalty on the Red Knights sparked some life into the Panthers, who responded with a power-play goal from Jack Poehling at 8:45.

BSM turned the game back into its favor just 37 seconds later when Ben Newhouse forced a turnoved in the neutral zone, skated into the right faceoff circle in the North zone and scored on a shot from just outside the faceoff dot.

Moore scored another short-handed goal 1:20 later and Besse tallied twice in the final four minutes of the second period as the Red Knights quickly turned a 2-1 lead into a five-goal advantage.

The Panthers made it a 6-2 game when Tristen Hazlett scored a short-handed goal 2:38 into the final period but Besse's 18th goal of the season came 43 seconds later and Alec Baer scored on the power play with 4:50 to play to finish the scoring.

The Red Knights had a 50-13 advantage in shots on goal, including 42-9 over the final two periods.

BSM faces Elk River at 7:30 p.m. in the second of two semifinal games, Friday. The winner moves onto Saturday's championship game versus the winner of Moorhead and Wayzata.