The West Salem Hockey Association has some up and coming talent that bodes well for the future.

The West Salem Wild Mites team, 6- to 8-year olds, beat Price County by a score of 2-1 to take home the state Division 4A championship March 3-4 in Minocqua.

The West Salem Wild includes players from Bangor and Rockland as well as West Salem. Four of the teams qualified for the state tournament this year. The Mites team had two 6-year-old players.

“We had a dream season,” said Mites coach Joe Belling. “We had a great group of kids and a great group of families. The two guys helping me coach, were phenomenal. The only thing better would to have beaten Onalaska one more time.”

“The kids worked extremely hard,” Belling said. “They had a really good season. They are good listeners with a strong team concept.

“It was a barnstormer of a weekend, Belling said. “We had a tough bracket. There were eight teams in the bracket.”

The West Salem Mites first beat Oshkosh by a score of 7-2.

The second team the Mites faced was Dodgeville. They have a history with them, but took them 4-3 in overtime.

The championship game was against Price County. According to Belling, that game was “very, very evenly matched.” The Mites came out on top at the end of the first period 1-0. Price County tied it up in the third period. With just under a minute and-a-half to go, one of the Mites got a penalty, leaving them shorthanded on the ice.

“I just asked the kids to kill the penalty and take it to overtime,” coach Belling said.

“We’re shorthanded and one of the kids gets the puck and sees his teammate up the ice and made a perfect pass,” Belling said. “With 36 seconds to go the wing broke down the ice, beating one of the defensemen and slapped a wrist shot over the right shoulder of the goalie to make it 2-1.

At that point, Price pulled the goalie to make it six on four, but the Mites were able to hold them off and run out the clock for the final score of 2-1.

The boys were pretty hyped up. One of them made his dad play Queen’s “We are the Champions” over and over for the whole drive back from Minocqua.

In addition to the Mites, the West Salem Wild had three other teams qualify for state. The Squirt team (9- and 10-year olds) finished third; the Peewee team, (11- and 12-year olds) finished seventh; and the Squirt B team (age 9-10) came home with sixth place from state.