DURHAM, N.H.<\/b> — After Northeastern avenged a two-goal deficit to tie New Hampshire in the second period, the Wildcats faithful were getting flashbacks to a game that less than 24 hours ago got away from them in the same scenario.<\/p>\n
Fortunately for New Hampshire, the Wildcats were able to pull away in the third period to grab a 5-4 victory and advance to the TD Garden to face Providence in the Hockey East semifinals.<\/p>\n
Brett Pesce’s goal at 13:41 of the third period stood as the game-winner for UNH.<\/p>\n
The Wildcats jumped on the board first at 3:39 in the first period on a Nick Sorkin goal which he shot past the blocker of Clay Witt on helpers from Kevin Goumas and Pesce.<\/p>\n
Less than two minutes later, Goumas made the lead 2-0 when he took a shot in the slot that sailed past a group of Huskies and Wildcats converged in front of Witt.<\/p>\n
The Huskies (19-15-4) cut the lead to 2-1 with under seven minutes to play in the first on a Torin Snydeman shot that appeared to hit the blocker of Wildcats’ goalie Casey DeSmith and went into the net.<\/p>\n
New Hampshire (22-17-1) regained a two-goal lead on Goumas’ second goal of the game on another shot from the middle of the slot that sailed past Witt.<\/p>\n
Northeastern came out strong in the third period when the Huskies’ savior this series, Mike Szmatula, scored his first of two on the night when he took a Braden Pimm pass and jammed it past the blocker of DeSmith.<\/p>\n
The Huskies tied the game at three at 14:27 in the period when Mike McMurtry grabbed a Pimm rebound and poked away at it until it finally got by DeSmith, who had trouble with rebounds all series long.<\/p>\n
Goumas completed the hat trick at the 4:40 mark of the third period on a power-play goal assisted by Eric Knodel and Sorkin. <\/p>\n
After Pesce’s goal, Northeastern, after getting a goal called off late in the third via a high stick, cut the lead to one with 3:50 left as Szmatula went coast to coast and put a shot by the diving DeSmith.<\/p>\n
With the loss, Northeastern is unlikely to clinch an at-large berth into the NCAA tournament.<\/p>\n
Witt ended the game with 21 saves, while DeSmith stopped 22.<\/p>\n
Huskies’ coach Jim Madigan was disappointed with the result of the weekend, but liked his team’s grit.<\/p>\n
“For our guys, I thought we worked hard, we battled, we overcame a lot of adversity and was proud of the way they continued to show tremendous resolve and wore the jersey, the front of the jersey really well,” Madigan said.<\/p>\n
UNH coach Dick Umile is thrilled his team is advancing.<\/p>\n
“Obviously, we’re just absolutely thrilled to be going to Boston,” Umile said. “I thought our team really battled hard tonight. It was a great series and as we know from the score, it went back and forth.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
DURHAM, N.H. — After Northeastern avenged a two-goal deficit to tie New Hampshire in the second period, the Wildcats faithful were getting flashbacks to a game that less than 24 hours ago got away from them in the same scenario. Fortunately for New Hampshire, the Wildcats were able to pull away in the third period […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":22374,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[353],"coauthors":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19073"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19073"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19073\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19075,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19073\/revisions\/19075"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19073"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=19073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}