SOUTH BEND, Ind. — Once again, Rochester Institute of Technology was ferocious and fearless. But its second upset bid in as many days hit a brick wall named Ryan Massa.
Omaha scored timely third-period goals and rode a 40-save shutout from its senior netminder to earn its first trip to the Frozen Four, defeating the Tigers 4-0 at Compton Family Ice Arena Sunday night.
[scg_html_mw2015]For 40 minutes, a scoreless tie had RIT thinking upset again. The pressure was firmly on UNO, and Omaha’s youth very well could have added even more nerves. But the Mavericks upperclassmen had other ideas.
“Going into that third period,” Massa said, “[we] four seniors stood up and took charge of the locker room and removed all doubt from everybody in that locker room.”
Then Jake Randolph scored his first goal since Dec. 30 1:01 into the third. Austin Ortega and Justin Parizek scored goals 76 seconds apart and David Pope buried the Tigers with an empty-net goal with 2:18 remaining.
“Obviously after that first goal they were starting to get one after the other,” RIT forward Matt Garbowsky said. “It was tough to find our legs there a little bit, but I thought we were just trying to grind it out. They really took it to us.”
RIT’s recipe for success from Saturday afternoon’s win over Minnesota State had the ingredients in place coming out of the first-period gate, with a fast, hard-hitting, unintimidated attack.
Even when Brandon Thompson knocked UNO’s Grant Gallo into the boards from behind and got a checking-from-behind major and game misconduct for it at 5:43 of the first, the Tigers regrouped and decisively killed the power play, allowing just one shot.
“I thought the first period we got a little rattled when Grant Gallo got hit into the boards and our power play wasn’t all that efficient,” UNO coach Dean Blais said. “We just got nervous. Then we settled down the second and third period and found a way to win.”
RIT rode the momentum of the penalty kill to a 22-19 edge in shots through the game’s first two periods, but Massa couldn’t be solved.
“They were limiting our time and space,” Massa said. “They were making physical hits on our top players. It was just a matter of time. I just had to keep the boys settled and keep them in it and give them a chance to get a greasy goal.”
[photoshelter-gallery g_id=”G0000IKPjKo1Ytno” g_name=”20150329-OMAHA-RIT-KELLEY” f_show_caption=”t” f_show_slidenum=”t” img_title=”casc” pho_credit=”iptc” f_link=”t” f_bbar=”t” fsvis=”f” width=”500″ height=”375″ bgcolor=”#AAAAAA” bgtrans=”t” btype=”old” bcolor=”#CCCCCC” crop=”f” trans=”xfade” tbs=”4000″ f_ap=”t” linkdest=”c” f_fullscreen=”f” f_constrain=”f” twoup=”f” f_topbar=”f” f_bbarbig=”” f_htmllinks=”f” f_enable_embed_btn=”f” f_show_watermark=”f” f_send_to_friend_btn=”f” f_smooth=”f” f_mtrx=”f” f_up=”f” target=”_self” wmds=”llQ6QNgpeC.p1Ucz7U.f22AHmvJKkeO8KKaKynfCkbdrIDQfVt5cj8cNMJeUjXn.W1VCRA–” ]Garbowsky especially saw that. His game-high seven shots on goal were all for naught.
“He definitely played a great game,” Garbowsky said of Massa. “There were a lot of times where we were just shaking our head, frustrated.”
Randolph finally broke it open 1:01 into the third, solving Jordan Ruby (24 saves) with a slap shot from the point, and UNO (20-12-6) found its rhythm.
“One goal was going to be the difference,” RIT coach Wayne Wilson said, “the way the game was played out.”
The Tigers (20-15-5) stayed on the attack — actually outshooting the Mavericks 18-9 in the final frame — but Massa and the Mavericks defense only got tougher to break.
“It gave us confidence,” the Mavericks’ Jake Guentzel said. “It was a tight game. You don’t want to make the first mistake. I feel like once Jake [Randolph] put that goal in we got the confidence behind us to build on that. And I think we did that.”
Austin Ortega made it 2-0 at 15:36, finishing a tic-tac-toe play with Guentzel and Pope. Then at 16:52, Guentzel sprung Parizek with a breakaway to put the game out of reach.
Pope put the final nail in the coffin with an empty-net goal at 17:42.
“It was a great way to finish a game to put our team in position to compete for a national title,” Massa said.
RIT failed to duplicate its improbable 2010 Frozen Four trip, but the Tigers will go home knowing they can go toe-to-toe with the best of them.
“I don’t think a lot of people expected us to be here,” Tigers forward Brad McGowan said. “But I also really wanted to go to the Frozen Four and I thought we had a really good chance at it. If we had scored that first goal, it would have been a whole different story.”
