In a season that has featured a variety of highs and lows, the Aberdeen Cougars are entering today’s State Boys’ Hockey Tournament on a momentum surge.

Aberdeen takes on the Sioux Falls West Flyers at 1 p.m. after capping the regular season with one of its best performances of the year.

“Definitely that game against Mitchell was one of the better if not the best game we played as an entire unit. We were buzzing,” said Cougars coach Chris Medill. “The guys were feeling good. Pucks were going in the net. It just felt like we were really dominating play. They have a players on their team that are capable of making big plays. We made a goal that we were going to shut them down and we did.”

As a result, Aberdeen is excited to get the tournament started against a squad it split with during the regular season.

“We’re very confident about our abilities against this team. We’ve got a very good idea of what they want to do and how they want to attack,” Medill said. “We did work on that a little bit. I really feel like we’re prepared for what they’re going to bring at us. We kind of made a few tweaks to our game, hoping to maybe surprise them a little bit.”

Medill said the season gets to be a long one, especially in the middle of winter when days are short and temperatures bottom out. The coach said that plays into a roller-coaster of a season.

“We start out hot. We’re ready to go, everybody is excited to play hockey. And then you get through the season, you get past Christmas and the New year, and all of a sudden we run into just that grind of winter. And it’s definitely the same in the hockey rink. We definitely feel that grind,” Medill said. “We are in the rink every day at 5:20 in the morning. It’s cold in there, it’s cold outside and it’s tough. And then you get to the end of the season and guys kind of start to get rejuvenated and looking forward to the state tournament. Then they start looking at the seedings a little more and now the urgency to win increases in their mind as well as the coaching staff.”

Aberdeen enters the tournament as the seventh seed. However, Medill feels that his squad is underrated and is prepared to make some noise this weekend.

“We are the underdog in this situation,” Medill said. “In the state right now, Rushmore kind of sits on their own as the number one seed, but 2-8 it’s anybody’s game and that’s how we feel.”

The Cougars have a very unique situation in that the squad is full of 15 seniors. It is a group that has experienced a little bit everything through the years.

“We really feel like we are being overlooked a little bit where we’re seeded, but we don’t mind that role,” Medill said. “We’ve got so many seniors, they’ve all been here before. … We’re ready to go.”

Medill said the most important contest of the three-day tourney is the first one, because it sets the tone for the entire tournament.

“I’ve been preaching this every tournament that we go do. That if we want to be playing for the championship, you gotta win the first one,” Medill said. “That first one is the most important one, because if you don’t win that, then your hopes and dreams are gone anyhow.”

Medill said there are two keys for the Cougars if they want to make a big impact on this year’s state tourney, and they have worked to shore up both areas.

“Number one, we’ve got to stay aggressive. We have to attack pucks,” Medill said. “That’s probably the number one thing we’ve worked on is just being aggressive, hard on pucks, playing hard along the wall, especially in the defensive zone so we can put a stop to the other’s forecheck, and then from that point try to make an effective breakout. … Our special teams we run very aggressive anyhow and it does tend to put teams on their heels, so if we can do that for the full 17 minutes one period at a time, it’s going to make a big difference.”

The other key is keeping the puck away from in front of the Aberdeen goal.

“We were struggling to get out of our own end a little bit,” Medill said. “We were giving up a lot of shots on goal, so we spent quite time a bit of time working on getting out of our own end, and I think that’s really going to pay off, too.”

Put the adjustments, the momentum, and a large group of dedicated seniors together and it has the making of a memorable state tournament for the Cougars.

“I’m glad that this senior group that we have is prepared,” Medill said, “and ready to make the best that they can out of their last state tournament.”