SATURDAY ROUNDUP: WMU gets series split with NDak

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Western Michigan was a 4-3 overtime winner over North Dakota on Saturday night in NCHC action. (Photo: Western Michigan Athletics)

Owen Michaels buried an overtime winner to lift Western Michigan to a 4-3 victory over North Dakota on Saturday night at Lawson Arena. The win gave Western Michigan a split in the weekend series and pushed WMU to 24-9-1 overall and 16-7-1 in NCHC play.

Liam Valente, Sam Huck, William Whitelaw also scored for the Broncos, while Grant Slukynsky had two assists. Hampton Slukynsky made 24 saves in net to earn the win.

For North Dakota, David Klee, Ben Strinden and Cole Reschny scored and Gibson Homer had 28 saves in net.

Ohio State 3, No. 1 Michigan State 3 (OT, Michigan state wins shootout)

Michigan State and Ohio State skated to a 3-3 tie, before the Spartans won the 13-round shootout on Saturday in B1G action.

Ryker Lee, Porter Martone and Anthony Romani all scored for Michigan State, while Riley Thompson, Niall Crocker and Jake Rozzi all lit the lamp for the Buckeyes.
Kristoffer Eberly had 34 saves for Ohio State while Trey Augustine had 28 for Michigan State.

Notre Dame 4, No. 5 Penn State 3 (OT)

Axel Kumlin scored less than a minute into overtime to lift Notre Dame to a 4-3 win over Penn State on Saturday night in B1G before a crowd of 5,089 at Compton Family Ice Arena.

Danny Nelson twice scored for the Irish while Maddox Fleming also scored. For Penn State, Casey Aman, Cade Christenson and Luke Misa scored.
As for goaltenders, Kevin Reidler had 29 saves for Penn State while Nicholas Kempf had 26 for Notre Dame.

No. 6 Providence 3, New Hampshire 2

Providence rebounded from a Friday night loss to salvage a weekend split with New Hampshire, winning 3-2 on the road in Hockey East action Saturday night.

The win gives the Friars the outright Hockey East regular season championship for the first time in program history. Michael Simpson made 27 saves including 16 in the third period to close out the win for Providence.

Julius Sumpf and Will Elger each scored shorthanded goals for Providence, while John Mustard also scored.

No. 7 Quinnipiac 4, Harvard 1

Quinnipiac scored four unanswered goals on Saturday night en route to a 4-1 win at Harvard in ECAC Hockey action.

Antonin Verreault, Aaron Schwartz, Matthew McGroarty and Markus Vidicek all scored for Quinnipiac while Dylan Silverstein had 19 saves.

No. 8 Denver 4, Arizona State 1

Denver completed a weekend sweep of NCHC foe Arizona State on Saturday night with a 4-1 win.

Samu Salminen scored twice for the Pioneers while Kyle Chyzowski and Kristian Epperson also scored.

Johnny Hicks had 25 saves in the Denver net, while his Arizona State counterpart Connor Hasley had 21.

Colorado College 2, No. 9 Minnesota Duluth 2 (OT, Duluth wins shootout)

Zam Plante of Minnesota Duluth and Brandon Lisowsky of Colorado College each had a pair of goals as the two NCHC foes skated to a 2-2 tie on Saturday night before a crowd of 5,812 at Amsoil Arena. Minnesota State prevailed in the postgame shootout.

In net, Jackson Unger had 32 saves for Colorado College, while Adam Gajan had 20 saves for Duluth.

Boston University 5, No. 10 Boston College 1

Ben Merrill scored twice, including a shorthanded goal, and Mikhail Yegorov made 28 saves to help lead the Boston University men’s ice hockey team to a 5-1 win over Hockey East rival Boston College in the 302nd edition of the Battle of Comm. Ave. Saturday night at Conte Forum.

Merrill was one of four Terriers with multi-point efforts as BU (16-15-2, 12-11-0 HE) completed a weekend sweep of BC (19-12-1, 13-9-0 HE). Gavin McCarthy and Jack Harvey each had one goal and one assist while Cole Hutson recorded two assists. Cole Eiserman notched his team-leading 15th goal of the season. Aiden Celebrini assisted on Harvey’s shorthanded strike in his 100th game as a Terrier, while Tynan Lawrence, Kamil Bednarik, Charlie Trethewey and Jonathan Morello each had an assist.

No. 11 Cornell 2, Clarkson 1

Cornell was a 2-1 winner over Clarkson on Saturday night in ECAC Hockey action.

Ryan Caton and Hoyt Stanley scored for the Big Red, while Tristan Sarsland lit the lamp for Clarkson.

In goal, Remington Keopple had 20 saves for Cornell while Shane Soderwall had 18 for Clarkson.

No. 13 Connecticut 3, No. 19 Massachusetts 3 (OT, UMass wins shootout)

UMass and UConn skated to a 3-3 tie in Hockey East on Saturday night before UMass prevailed in the ensuing shootout.

Justin Kerr, Lucas Olvestad and Jack Musa scored for the Minutemen while Joey Muldowney, Trey Scott and Jake Percival scored for UConn.

For UConn, Tyler Muszelik had 19 saves while Mike Hrabal of UMass made 50.

Princeton 2, No. 14 Dartmouth 2 (OT, Princeton wins shootout)

Dartmouth rallied for a pair of goals from Hank Cleaves in the third period to tie Princeton 2-2 and force overtime, but Princeton prevailed in the ECAC Hockey shootout.

Joshua Karnish and David Jacobs each scored for Princeton. As for goaltending, Arthur Smith had 23 saves for Princeton while Dartmouth’s Emmett Croteau turned in a 19-save effort.

Bowling Green 4, No. 16 Michigan Tech 3 (OT)

Jackson Niedermayer slapped a shot past the goalie 49 seconds into overtime to lift Bowling Green past Michigan Tech Huskies on Saturday night, 4-3, in CCHA action at the John MacInnes Student Ice Arena. The win completed the series sweep.

Gustav Stjernberg, Tyler Hostson and Quinn Emerson also scored for Bowling Green while Tyler Palmer had 18 saves.

For Michigan Tech, Owen Bartoszkiewicz had 30 saves in the loss. Max Koskipirtti, Teydon Trembecky and Carson Latimer all scored for Michigan Tech.

The Falcons finished the regular season with 49 points, tied with Michigan Tech. Because BGSU and Michigan Tech only played the two games this weekend, head-to-head does not apply unless four games are played. The tiebreaker then becomes regulation CCHA wins, which Michigan Tech holds over Bowling Green, 13-12.

No. 17 St. Thomas 2, Bemidji State 2 (OT, St. Thomas wins shootout)

St. Thomas got a third period goal at 2:35 from Caige Sterzer to force a 2-2 tie and overtime, and eventually beat Bemidji in a CCHA shootout on Saturday night.

Nathan Pilling also scored for St. Thomas, while Carsen Musser made 28 saves.

No. 18 Minnesota State 3, Northern Michigan 0

For the 10th time in program history, Minnesota State won the MacNaughton Cup as CCHA regular season champions, clinching the honor with a 3-0 win over Northern Michigan before a crowd of 4,872 fans at Mayo Clinic Health System Event Center on Saturday night.

Alex Tracy made 20 saves for his 12th career shutout, second all-time in program history.
The Mavericks (18-9-7, 14-7-5 CCHA) finished the regular season with 51 points for the top seed in the CCHA quarterfinals, ahead of St. Thomas (50 points), Augustana (50), Michigan Tech (49) and Bowling Green (49). Minnesota State will host Ferris State (7-25-2, 6-18-2 CCHA) in a best-of-three series starting Friday in Mankato.

“Just a ton of resilience by the group,” said Mavericks coach Luke Strand. “Winning is hard. It takes a whole village of people and guys stepped up and did their job. You can put some things in fate and others hands but eventually you have to do the work yourself, so I was super happy for the guys for that.”

Evan Murr, Ean Somoza and Tristan Lemyre all scored for Minnesota State.

No. 20 Maine 3, Northeastern 2

Maine earned a 3-2 Hockey East win over Northeastern on Saturday night at the Tsongas Center in Lowell, Mass.

Frank Djurasevic pulled Maine even 91 seconds into the middle frame on a one-timer from the top of the left circle. Less than three minutes later, a Djurasevic one-timer from the top of the left circle gave the Black Bears the lead. Sully Scholle’s goal 10 minutes later pushed Maine’s edge to 3-1. Northeastern pulled within one 12:42 to play but Maine held on for the 3-2 win.

Maine had the 32-25 lead in shots on goal. Mathis Rousseau made 23 saves in moving to 8-5-0 on the season. Maine is now 61-60-21 in the all-time series with Northeastern.