ST. PAUL — The state Class 1A tournament has had an abundance of quarterfinal blowouts over the years.

This wasn’t supposed to be one of those.

No, if anything No. 3 seed Northfield was, by most, considered a slight favorite to beat No. 6 Orono on Wednesday.

A blowout? In favor of an Orono team playing without its top scorer? Not gonna happen. 

Yet, the Spartans were stunning in their dominance, beating the Raiders 8-2 at the Xcel Energy Center in a game that never seemed in doubt.

The pregame handicapping was based heavily on Northfield’s 4-2 victory over Orono on the Spartans’ home ice during the regular season. That, and Northfield’s gaudy 22-4-2 record compared to Orono’s 15-10-3 mark.

Oh, and don't forget, outcomes of Class 1A quarterfinals are all but preordained. Top seed beats lower seed, often in a rout. End of story.

Orono scored five of the first six goals and Northfield never mounted any sustained momentum. The game finished in running time because of the Spartans’ six-goal lead.

“This is a unique environment, it’s a big stage,” Northfield coach Mike Luckraft said. “The train got off the tracks and it just went downhill for us.”

Northfield was steamrolled by Orono’s top line, which scored six of the Spartans’ eight goals. Jackson Knight, who leads Orono with 33 goals, didn’t play because of an unspecified injury so first-year spartans coach Mitch Hall plugged Ethan Pagel into the top unit with no discernible drop-off.

Pagel routinely plays on Orono’s top power-play unit, but the top line before Wednesday consisted of Knight, Trey Landa and Rory Kvern.

“Pagel came and filled that spot,” said Landa, who had two goals and two assists. “He did a wonderful job.”

Pagel scored a power-play goal in the first period, added an assist in the second and capped the scoring with another goal in the third. Hall said the new forward line, call it version 2.0, will be together for the rest of the tournament, adding that Knight is unlikely to be available.

Northfield scored 33 seconds into the second period to close to within 2-1, but Orono was unfazed.

“They scored the first goal pretty quickly in the second period, but we didn’t let it bother us,” Kvern said. “We just stuck to what we do. And we kept scoring more and they just piled on and kept coming.”