Shocking Spear Spurs Second Ranked Irish To Overtime Victory

The Notre Dame Fighting Irish scored two goals in a span of less than one minute to defeat the Ohio State Buckeyes, 4-3, in overtime in front of 6,571 in Value City Arena Friday night.

With the win, the Fighting Irish remain in first place in the CCHA; the Buckeyes are fifth.

With Ohio State leading 3-2 late in the third, forward Ian Boots committed an open-ice spear on Ian Cole of Notre Dame that gave them the five minute power play with 2:11 remaining in the game.

Notre Dame pulled goaltender Jordan Pearce and got many shots on goal during that span. Defenseman Brett Blatchford was being guarded by Ohio State’s Corey Elkins, Blatchford passed to Erik Condra on the stick side slot of Ohio State goaltender Dustin Carlson. As time expired, Condra scored his second power-play goal of the game to send the game to overtime.

“Selfish penalty cost us the game,” Ohio State coach John Markell said. “I thought we played a pretty good hockey game 5-on-5. The big thing is to recapture the emotion in that game after the disappointment.”

“I was just trying to get a shot on net, and it was so late in the period, were just trying to get the puck to the net,” Condra said. “They were blocking a lot of shots tonight so we had pump and walk around them a bit and finally and it bounced right to me.”

Forty-nine seconds into overtime, Calle Ridderwall scored his 12th goal of the season to win the game in overtime.

“To be able to score like that was huge momentum and it helped us going into overtime,” Notre Dame head coach Jeff Jackson said about the final goal in the third period. “We had the power play so it was just a matter of fitting in that extra man. I think it was kind of a crazy situation, they had Erik Condra with a bad skate and a couple kids injured tonight, we were playing with a short bench… I was coaching by the seat of my pants.”

This is Ohio State’s first loss in overtime and are 2-1-3 with all three ties becoming shootout wins. This is Notre Dame’s first win in overtime this season.

Notre Dame (21-4-3 overall, 15-3-3-3 in the CCHA) got the game’s first lead at 4:59 of the first with a long blue line shot from Cole. Ohio State tied the game when Corey Elkins one-timed a pass that came from Boots from the right mid-wall. Notre Dame controlled the flow of the game the first few minutes, but Ohio State had the better of the opportunities throughout the first and going into the second period.

Ohio State got the lead 1:15 into the second when Peter Boyd sprung a puck from scrum to fellow forward Sergio Somma who found the five hole of Pearce.

Condra scored his first of two goals at 8:50 of the third as his shot trickled past Carlson and barely snuck past the goal line. Notre Dame went 3-5 on the power play.

Ohio State (17-9-3, 10-8-3-3) got what they thought would be the game winner with 2:55 remaining in the game when John Albert found Buckeyes leading goal scorer Zac Dalpe who beat the stick of Pearce.

Both teams get a day off Saturday and return Sunday afternoon for a rematch. Ohio State has to play without Boots as he was disqualified for his spearing penalty.