Boys lacrosse: Stillwater and Edina advance to state championship game

Stillwater senior attackman Grant Giese geared up for Thursday’s semifinal against No. 6 seed East Ridge with considerable calmness.

Giese didn’t get too high or too low, even when he buried a flying backhanded finish in the first quarter. He’d played at this stage before, falling one stop short of the state title game in 2022 and 2024. But Giese said his team was built for this moment.

“This team’s different,” Giese said. “Everyone knows what they’re doing. We just came out not jittery at all. We just played our game.”

Behind Giese’s game-high six goals, No. 2 seed Stillwater secured its first state championship berth with a 12-6 victory and will play Edina for the title Saturday. The Ponies scored five unanswered goals in the fourth quarter to cruise into unprecedented territory.

“He lulls you into a false sense of security, and then he scores on you,” Stillwater coach Peter Flock said of Giese. “Without him, we’d be a pretty defensive team. He just finds a way to put the ball in the back of the net.”

The result marked the Ponies’ second victory over their east metro rival in 2025. Stillwater defeated the Raptors 11-10 in overtime May 1. That game’s end-to-end action had Flock convinced: These two teams were destined to see each other again.

For Giese, an all-East side semifinal carried quite the significance.

“Everyone thinks the East is bad,” Giese said. “No, not anymore. The East is coming. We’re here. All these teams on the East side, they’re fighting.”

A cadre of Minnesota’s most prolific scorers squared off in Thursday’s second semifinal between No. 1 seed Edina and No. 5 seed Lakeville North.

Few attacking duos boast more formidable résumés than the Panthers’ New Jersey Institute of Technology-bound twins, Blake and Carson Piscitiello, the state’s all-time leaders in goals and assists, respectively.

But the Hornets embraced the challenge and took a 10-4 victory over Lakeville North. The Piscitiellos combined for just three points.

“Our guys want a challenge,” Edina coach Andy Lee said. “A ton of credit to our faceoff guys and the guys on the ride. It’s both sides. The defense was suffocating.”

In their first state tournament appearance since 2012, the Hornets secured their first trip to the state title game by knocking off a perennial powerhouse.

For Lee, it’s just another milestone in a “season full of firsts.”

“It doesn’t feel real,” Lee said. “These guys come every day, they push the coaches, they push us. It just feels incredible to see how hard they worked, considering how great [Lakeville] North is. We never gave in. We never collapsed.”

Edina jumped to a 6-1 advantage in the third quarter, but senior Cooper Anderson, the program’s all-time leading points scorer, hobbled off the field following a heavy collision at midfield.

Senior attack Eli Busse, who scored a game-high three goals, knew his team would step up in the All-American’s absence.

“A lot of us have played together since before high school, since 12U ball,” Busse said. “It’s surreal to be able to be together on the field one last time.