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March 17, 2008

Gophers edge MSU in two overtimes

Mavericks await selection committee's decision on national tournament

By Shane Frederick

Free Press Staff Writer — slideshow Click here to see a photo gallery from Sunday's game.



Both coaches lamented that there had to be a loser.

But after 182 minutes and 8 seconds of hockey over the weekend, Minnesota State ended up falling in the first round of the Western Collegiate Hockey Association playoffs Sunday at the Alltel Center

In the third overtime game in as many days and the second double-overtime game of the series, Tony Lucia scored the goal that gave Minnesota a 3-2 win and a berth into the Final Five and left the Mavericks hoping the NCAA tournament committee will remember them in a week.

Lucia stuffed in the rebound of Evan Kaufmann’s shot with 3:01 remaining in the second overtime.

“It’s a shame that one of those teams had to lose,” Mavericks coach Troy Jutting said. “From Friday night at 7 o’clock through tonight’s game, I don’t know if I’ve seen a better weekend of college hockey.”

The Mavericks won Friday’s game 1-0 in double overtime, and Minnesota came back for a 2-1 overtime win Saturday.

“This was the most hard-fought weekend I’ve ever been a part of,” Gophers coach Don Lucia said.

Now the Mavericks’ fate is in the hands of the Pairwise rankings and the NCAA tournament committee. Minnesota State (19-16-4) fell to a tie for 13th in the rankings, which mimic the selection process.

“Hopefully, we’ll get to play again,” Jutting said. “This team has shown a great deal of improvement all season. They played their hearts out this weekend. If there’s any justice, we’ll play again.

The two goaltenders – Minnesota’s Alex Kangas and Minnesota State’s Mike Zacharias — continued their outstanding play Sunday. Kangas stopped 44 shots, while Zacharias stopped 47. Both goalies made 22 saves in the overtimes.

“Both goalies were unbelievable,” Don Lucia said. “There were times in overtime when I thought (MSU) is going to win it here, and there were times when I thought we were going to win it.”

A little more than a minute before the game-winning goal, Kangas made a tough save on Jon Kalinski, sticking out his leg pad at the last moment to knock away a shot from the slot.

“He made an unbelievable save,” Kalinski said. “I don’t know how he came across to make it.”

Kalinski lamented not being able to reward Zacharias for his play.

“Zachy was unbelievable,” Kalinski said. “He kept us in it every night. We owe him a lot, and it’s too bad we didn’t get him the win this weekend.”

The Mavericks led 1-0 on Mick Berge’s power-play goal at 8:38. But the Gophers came back on goals by Jay Barriball and Patrick White in the first and second periods, respectively.

Six minutes into the second period, Mavericks forward Jason Wiley was given a five-minute major penalty and a game disqualification for and elbow to the head of Minnesota’s Tom Pohl. Pohl went into the boards at the Gophers bench and had to be taken out of the rink on a backboard and stretcher with an apparent head injury.

According to team officials, Pohl was taken to Immanuel-St. Joseph’s Hospital with a head injury and then airlifted to Rochester for precautionary reasons.

At 3:20 of the third period Kael Mouillierat tied the game for the Mavericks, tapping a Trevor Bruess pass through Kangas’ pads.

Both teams had a number of quality scoring chances in overtime. Minnesota State’s Andrew Sackrison hit one off the crossbar.

Only one other time in WCHA history have all three games of a playoff series gone to overtime. The other time was in 1992 between Colorado College and Minnesota Duluth, with Colorado College winning in the series’ second triple-overtime game.

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