Mountain Vista relishes first trip to Frozen Four.

Tanner Gillis won’t soon forget Mountain Vista’s loss to Monarch in the third game of the ice hockey season. The 7- 1 defeat was brutal enough, but more frustrating was overhearing Monarch players say the Golden Eagles were terrible.

Fast- forward to the end of the regular season, and Mountain Vista had joined Monarch as one of the twoNo. 1 seeds entering the state tournament.

And, after playoff wins last week over No. 8- seeded Aspen and defending state champion Cherry Creek, a No. 4 seed, first- year Mountain Vista coach Kevin Insana has his team in the Frozen Four for the first time in its five- year program history.

“Three years in the making and finally being able to make it past that quarterfinal game definitely feels good,” said Gillis, a four- year starter.

With leadership from 12 seniors, including team captain and leading scorer Gillis, Mountain Vista ( 14- 5) was able to break that streak of four quarterfinal losses.

The team’s biggest regular- season victorywas a 5- 4 win over rival Lewis- Palmer to clinch the PeakConference title and get a No. 1 seed in the tournament. But the Golden Eagles entered the playoffs on a three- game losing streak with losses to tournament teams Denver East, Regis Jesuit and Cherry Creek.

ANo. 1 seed, yet still considered an underdog, Mountain Vista redeemed itself by taking down Cherry Creek 4- 3 in the quarterfinals. The Bruins ( 16- 5) not only won the state title last year, it claimed the combined division title at theUSAHockey national championships.

“One of the advantages of us being the underdog is Creek overlooked us,” Gillis said. “They thought theywere definitely going to be moving on the next weekend.”

Gillis, leading the team in scoring with 28 goals, along with seven assists, cocaptains the team with ThunderRidge senior defenseman John Newman ( four goals, 10 assists), who is more of a vocal leader. Gillis leads more by example and is one of the elite players on the team who balances a high school schedule with coinciding club duties. Gillis, a 6foot, 180- pound forward, competes in Tier II club hockey for the Littleton Hawks.

Mountain Vista, which pulls players from ThunderRidge, Highlands Ranch and Rock Canyon, has double- digit scoring help from Kaden Stewart ( 16), Derek Nead ( 14), Ryan Lindemann ( 13) and Jordan Cox ( 11).

Regis Jesuit ( 20- 1), Mountain Vista’s opponent in the semifinals, also won a USAHockey national title last year in the pure division— the team’s third national title in four years.

“They know where they’re at,” Insana said. “This is the first team, these are the first players in program history, to make it this far.”