ITHACA, N.Y. — An early-season road trip to a ranked squad can be a daunting task, especially for a young team like Nebraska-Omaha, but a hot goalie can make all the difference.
Mavericks’ goaltender Ryan Massa stonewalled Cornell on Saturday evening at Lynah Rink, making 32 stops on 33 shots to propel his club to a 2-1 victory over the 18th-ranked Big Red.
Massa’s impressive performance capped a weekend that included 61 saves on 63 shots to propel Omaha to a three-point weekend in upstate New York.
Omaha coach Dean Blais had nothing but praise for his senior netminder after the game, saying that “he’s played that way all year for us. We have a lot of freshman and until they get going, it’s going to be like this every weekend.”
Those freshmen that Blais mentioned take up 11 of the spots on his roster and one of those notched his first collegiate goal to get the Mavericks started in the opening frame.
A strong push from Avery Peterson earned the 19 year-old his first collegiate goal and point. Dominic Zombo got the rush started when he broke in on a 2-on-2 break with Peterson from the center point. Zombo lost control of the puck, but he was able to push it far enough forward so that it got past the two Big Red defenders. A hard-charging Peterson coralled the biscuit there, and he found a hole under the pads of Cornell starting goalie Hayden Stewart to give the Mavericks the lead.
The tally came with just 1:59 remaining in the opening frame, but that was enough time for the Big Red to even the score on its home ice.
Matt Buckles got the play started for Cornell when he fed Trevor Yates in the attacking end. From there, Yates made a slick move to get the puck to Jeff Kubiak in the slot. Kubiak had a great chance to score after a nifty deke around a defender, but he just could not finish. Luckily for Cornell, Yates was charging hard to the cage and was able to pick up the loose change, then deposit it into the back of the net, leveling the two clubs going into the first intermission.
Even with the goal, Cornell head coach Mike Schafer was displeased with his club’s start to the game.
“The first period was horrendous,” said Schafer. “We turned a lot of pucks over.”
Although his club got off to that slow start, he spoke positively about the Big Red’s response.
“In the second and third, we did a lot of great things,” Schafer said. “We had a lot of great chances and we did a great job on the power play.”
After being outplayed throughout most of the first 80 minutes of the two-game set, the Big Red seemed to get its skating legs going in the second period, but it was the Mavericks that would eventually duck into the intermission with the lead.
Luc Snuggerud fired a hard dump into the attacking zone to begin the play. Tanner Lane went in behind the net and dug out the puck, then got it over to Austin Ortega right around the goal line. Ortega swept the puck towards the post in a wraparound attempt that just narrowly snuck past Stewart, restoring Omaha’s small advantage and earning Ortega a two-point performance for the game.
The third period of play saw a Big Red onslaught as it searched for the equalizing score, but Massa stood his ground for the Mavericks. The senior turned away 10 shots in the closing frame to secure a successful weekend for his club.
Both teams were forced to jumble lines on Saturday night as Mavericks’ top-line forward Jake Guentzel and Cornell’s power-play leader Joakim Ryan were both out of the lineup.
