How an undersized player from a small town is on the verge of breaking a prestigious state record

Feb. 15—LA CRESCENT, Minn. — Eriah Hayes remembers the first hockey camp he directed in his hometown, nearly a decade ago, quite well.

The 2007 La Crescent-Hokah High School graduate welcomed hockey players of all ages to the camp at La Crescent Community Ice Arena, the building where he set the Lancers' all-time records for goals (135) and points (232) during his varsity career from 2003-07.

That's where Hayes' introduction came to the player who would one day break his records.

"One of the first times I met him was, I came back home one summer and put on a camp with some of the guys I played with at (Minnesota State University) Mankato — Bryce Gervais, Brett Stern," Hayes said. "We were playing a kickball game and there was this little kid — it was Wyatt (Farrell) — on the ice, buzzing around, he's competing like a little buzzsaw.

"The game came down to the last out and Wyatt got tagged out at home (plate) to end the game. And this kid, this little buzzsaw, absolutely lost his mind, to the point where the three of us are looking at each other like 'what's going on with this guy?' But that's who Wyatt is. He loves to compete, he loves to win. ... I'm sure he disagreed with the call, but he was all about anything he could do to help his team win."

Farrell, now a senior at La Crescent-Hokah High School, still loves to compete. And Hayes has had a front-row seat to guide and mold the player who supplanted him atop the Lancers record book and who has drawn state-wide attention to the school and the program while humbly chasing a prestigious state record.

The 5-foot-8, 175-pound Farrell has 48 goals this season and 192 in his five-year varsity career. If he scores four more, he will tie the Minnesota high school boys hockey record for career goals of 196, set by Little Falls' Ben Hanowski in 2009.

With five more goals, Farrell will stand alone as the state's top all-time goal scorer. He has at least two more chances to get there — tonight's 6 p.m. contest against No. 16-ranked Luverne, and one guaranteed playoff game. The seedings and bracket for the Section 1, Class 1A playoffs will be announced this weekend.

"If we keep playing well and we keep winning and keep scoring goals, then if the record comes, it comes," Farrell told the Post Bulletin in late December, "but if it doesn't, well, I'd rather hit the program record for 20 wins. Everybody's pretty excited in La Crescent. There's a lot of hype around this team and we just gotta keep going."

The Lancers have done just that, having won 23 of their first 24 games. Farrell is averaging exactly two goals per game in that span. If he meets that average over the next two games, he'll at least tie Hanowski's 15-year-old record.

Regardless of what happens, his pursuit of that record, coupled with the Lancers' record-setting season as a team have brought hockey fans out of the woodwork in this scenic town of 5,300 people, nestled in the bluffs surrounding the Mississippi River, directly across the water from La Crosse, Wis.

"I think (Farrell's pursuit of the record) has brought some added legitimacy to the program," said Jacob Feldman, a 1997 La Crescent-Hokah High School graduate who is now in his second year as the high school's principal, "as does having Eriah as the coach, but this gives it that piece of, a small town, small school in the southern part of the state can actually produce some players at an exceptionally high level and can put a team together that can make noise statewide.

"That's exciting for us."

Hayes and his family returned to La Crescent after his professional playing career was cut short, concussions and injuries causing him to retire in the fall of 2017.

A year later, he took over as head coach of the La Crescent-Hokah boys hockey team.

A sharp-shooting eighth-grader with a non-stop motor also joined the Lancers' varsity that winter. Wyatt Farrell immediately displayed the same win-at-any-cost fire in his belly that Hayes first witnessed in a kickball game years earlier.

And with maturity, Farrell had channeled that fire and passion in positive ways on and off the ice.

"No matter what Wyatt is doing," Hayes said, "if it's a kickball game, if it's a game of chess, or if it's a hockey game, he wants to win. That camp is my first memory of him and his compete level was off the charts. I mean Off. The. Charts. He couldn't have cared less about who we were or who else was around. All he cared about was competing and winning."

Friends, teammates, teachers and coaches all offer a similar assessment of Farrell: Humble. Hockey-obsessed. Team-first. Leader. Winner.

He doesn't play hockey to break records.

He's appreciative and respectful, but would prefer the state-wide media spotlight that has been placed on him be broadened to shine on the entire La Crescent-Hokah team that is 23-1-0, ranked No. 19 in the state in Class 1A, has won 19 consecutive games and is outscoring opponents by 5.6 goals per game.

"This year, it's been a lot more than normal," Farrell said last week, in regard to the increased media coverage and attention he has received, "but it's been really cool. Everybody has been really respectful of the team. It's been good. ...

"A lot of people here are excited about this group and excited to see what we can do come playoff time. We just need to focus on being consistent, playing a consistent three-period game every night."

Ethan Myhre has been a teammate of Farrell's from the time they could play organized sports.

Myhre said there was always something different, in a good way — a self-driven way — about Farrell, whether they were playing sports or doing school work in the classroom.

Then, one day when they were about 10 or 11 years old, Myhre said, those thoughts went from "Wyatt is a good hockey player" to "Wyatt is a good hockey player."

"We were in Peewees, playing in a tournament, and he kept scoring," Myhre said. "I think he scored seven goals in one game. And that's how I got it. He has something special. ... For him, it's all mental, I think. He doesn't say it (out loud), but he's always telling himself that he's the best player out there and he can do things other people can't do.

"He's a very — he's a great leader. He's a very humble guy, hates talking about himself. He always only wants to make the team better."

That idea of being the best took root from the start of the 2019-20 season, when Hayes not only brought Farrell up to the varsity as an eighth-grader, but made him an integral part of the Lancers' offense.

While Farrell certainly didn't think of himself as "the best" at that time, he quietly made that his goal, another way of pushing himself to be his best every day.

He had no time to dip a toe into the varsity hockey waters — a strategy that wouldn't have suited his personality, anyway. Hayes inserted him on the team's top line and power play from the get-go, and Farrell scored and scored, and kept scoring.

He needed fewer than 10 minutes to record his first varsity point — an assist on a Reid Haffner power-play goal 9:34 into the 2019-20 season opener — and less than one period to score his first varsity goal — a power-play goal with 23 seconds to go in the first period. He finished his first high school game, on Nov. 23, 2019, with two goals and an assist in the Lancers' 7-6 win at Austin.

"No hesitation whatsoever," Hayes said when asked about bringing Farrell up to the varsity just a month after he turned 14 years old. "He was a little undersized, but he just never ... he never seemed scared to me. He always had this kind of quiet confidence about him that reassured me that this is where he's meant to be."

If they needed it, Farrell provided that same reassurance to his teammates and to hockey fans in La Crescent, through his play on the ice.

He finished his eighth-grade season as the Lancers' leader in goals (21), points (31) and power-play goals (5).

It was only up from there.

"From the first game on, he just grew his game every night," Hayes said. "There was maybe some doubt in the older guys' minds as to, you know, is this little guy going to be able to handle it? I think once they started practicing with him ... I remember that first practice that year, just seeing everyone's eyes open, seeing what he was doing and how hard he worked at it. I think they were all like, 'OK, this kid's the real deal and he's here to stay.'"

The stats only tell part of Farrell's story.

It's the surface-level part that's easy to see and understand: The program-record 192 goals, 27 game-winning goals and 278 points in 117 games. His 46 goals and 86 points this season are the most of any boys player in the state, regardless of class.

During his five seasons on the Lancers' varsity, he has accounted for 33.9% of their goals and 27.3% of their points.

Those numbers show what he has accomplished.

They don't tell how he's gotten here, how he's remained so consistent while opposing defenses have constantly schemed to shut him down, or how he's worked nearly his entire life to get to this point.

The stats measure productivity. They don't measure determination and discipline. Farrell's success on and off the ice — he carries a grade-point average of better than 3.8 while almost exclusively taking college-level courses this school year — are where those qualities meet.

"He's always been humble. He has such a high level of humility," said Adam Rislov, Farrell's English teacher at La Crescent-Hokah High School, "and his work ethic is non-stop. He's always going or doing something. ... He's a quiet leader. When he speaks up, people will listen."

Rislov sees those leadership qualities first-hand in his classroom on a daily basis, as Farrell takes his seat in the front row, next to A.J. Donovan, the quarterback and a captain of La Crescent-Hokah's football team, and Parker McQuin, a senior leader and captain of the Lancers' boys basketball team that is 18-6 and in first place in the Three Rivers Conference-East Division.

"Those three are leaders in (the classroom), too. They're my leaders, they lead by example," Rislov said. "Wyatt probably says the least of the three, but when he does, everyone listens. He leads by example, leads by behavior, leads by modeling, day in and day out. There hasn't been a day where I've had to look and think 'that's not Wyatt-like behavior.'

"One hundred percent of the time he is ... he's just an earnest young man. It doesn't matter if he's on the soccer field, the hockey rink, in the school hallway or classroom, he's the same individual. There's no facade. There's no mask. There's no faking."

In a time when many top high school hockey players make a developmental decision to leave home to play junior hockey, Farrell hasn't.

That time will come soon enough. When the Lancers' season ends, Farrell will head to St. Cloud, to play for the Norsemen in the North American Hockey League. There, he'll once again be challenged by players who are two or three years older than him, some of whom already have in their back pocket something that Farrell wants — an offer to play Division I college hockey.

A handful of coaches and scouts from Division I programs have reached out to Hayes about Farrell this winter. Some have traveled to watch Farrell play in person. He's squarely on the radar of college scouts, many of whom plan to continue to track his progress at the next level. His current coach has no doubt that Farrell will push and improve himself to the point that a Division I coach will make him an offer. Sometimes, one offer is all it takes for a dam to break, and more offers to come pouring in.

"His work ethic ... there are nights where he has two guys on him all night and he just keeps finding ways to change his game and create chances for himself," Hayes said. "He watches a ton of video of himself, of his own play. As soon as he sees the ways that teams are trying to shut him down, he's instantly thinking of ways he can beat that.

"And this year, playing on a line with Noah (Gillette) and Myhre — I don't think Myhre gets enough credit for what he does, finishing checks, forcing turnovers — Wyatt knows he can distribute the puck, and you're seeing the assists come. He's showing he's more than just a goal scorer."

For his senior season, though, Farrell committed to himself, his teammates, his friends and the Lancers program. It's all in an effort to help put La Crescent-Hokah hockey back on the map in an even bigger way than Hayes did as a player 17 years ago, when he finished his high school career with 135 goals, 97 assists and 232 points. Farrell has blown by program records for goals (192), points (278) and goals in a season (52, last year).

The chance to set records isn't what kept him at home this year, though. It was the chance to build a special team with his friends and the opportunity to play one more season under the first La Crescent native to reach the NHL.

"I think a lot of it was being able to play for Eriah and how Eriah feeds into him and helps him grow his craft," said JP Piche, a physical education teacher and soccer coach at La Crescent-Hokah, who helped build the Lancers high school hockey program from the ground up. "Wyatt could see the uptick in the program coming. He's seen it, what it can be and what it has become.

"I feel he very much wanted to be part of growing it. He's been a very big part of that."

It's been a perfect storm of sorts for Farrell and the Lancers this season. His decision to stay, coupled with the addition of linemate Noah Gillette (a transfer from Onalaska, Wis.) and the addition of foreign-exchange students Michal Stojka and Tobias Sajdok (both from Czechia) have boosted the team's depth and taken the scoring pressure off Farrell's shoulders.

Gillette's 42 goals are the third-most in the state and his 77 points are second in the state, behind Farrell's 86. Their linemate, Myhre, is fourth on the team with 28 assists. Six Lancers have 30 or more points this winter. In the previous four seasons, La Crescent-Hokah had seven 30-plus point scorers, three of those being Farrell.

All of that success has unsurprisingly had a trickle-down effect. Participation numbers at the younger levels are booming in the La Crescent Youth Hockey Association, leading Lancers fans to believe that the next Eriah Hayes or Wyatt Farrell could soon work his way up the ladder.

"I've seen more of our youth players at (high school) games than ever," Piche said. "They're more aware of it. They're watching. They see what's going on, how exciting it is. There are former coaches and guys now in their 30s and 40s who played here who are calling or coming to games.

"It just shows how much Eriah and the staff here have done to showcase our talent that they've helped develop. And Wyatt will be the first to say that, it's not all him. He's about the team. He just wants to win."

A year-by-year look at La Crescent-Hokah's all-time leader in goals scored and points, Wyatt Farrell:

SEASON GRADE GAMES GOALS ASSISTS POINTS

*2023-24 Senior 24 48 38 86

2022-23 Junior 26 52 20 72

2021-22 Soph. 26 49 13 62

^2020-21 Fresh. 20 22 5 27

2019-20 8th 21 21 10 31

TOTALS 117 — 192 86 278

* — still in progress

^ — season shortened to 20 games due to COVID-19