{"id":20241,"date":"2015-01-30T23:06:09","date_gmt":"2015-01-31T05:06:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/?p=20241"},"modified":"2020-08-24T22:17:48","modified_gmt":"2020-08-25T03:17:48","slug":"ortega-scores-another-game-winner-to-lead-omaha-over-north-dakota","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/2015\/01\/30\/ortega-scores-another-game-winner-to-lead-omaha-over-north-dakota\/","title":{"rendered":"Ortega scores another game-winner to lead Omaha over North Dakota"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Austin Ortega (16) scored with 33 seconds remaining in overtime to give No. 5 Omaha a 3-2 win over No. 1 North Dakota on Friday (photo: Michelle Bishop).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

OMAHA, Neb.<\/strong> — In the post-game press conference, goalie Ryan Massa patted Austin Ortega on the back and said, “What’s up hero?”<\/p>\n

Nebraska-Omaha’s hero scored his ninth game-winning goal of the year, the most in the NCAA, as the Mavericks knocked off No. 1 North Dakota in overtime at home.<\/p>\n

“Austin Ortega’s got a horseshoe in his pocket,” Mavericks coach Dean Blais said. “He did it again.”<\/p>\n

In front of the biggest crowd Omaha has drawn all year with 11,168 in attendance, Omaha fans did their best job of replicating Ralph Engelstad Arena in a buzzing environment.<\/p>\n

“There was quite a bit of hype there coming into the game, and it lived up to it,” Tyler Vesel said. “It couldn’t have been any better.”<\/p>\n

Ortega scored the game-winning goal on a redirect near the crease. Ian Brady, standing near the boards, sent a shot into the middle through traffic that Ortega was able to get the toe of his stick on.<\/p>\n

“We had been working on our five-on-three, lately we were really moving the puck around,” Ortega said. “At first, we weren’t really doing what we wanted to do and I kind of got out of place there, but I know Ian was on the wall and I kind of found that open space and he made a beautiful pass to me and it was really fortunate.”<\/p>\n

It was Vesel who got things started when the freshman got past Troy Stecher on a hesitation toe drag and backhanded a goal while falling to give the Mavs the early lead at 18:19 in the first period<\/p>\n

\"\"
Omaha’s Avery Peterson flies into the bench after colliding with North Dakota’s Bryn Chyzyk (29) (photo: Michelle Bishop).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Mavs built on that in the second period when Avery Peterson whacked a bouncing puck that managed to sneak past Zane McIntyre at 2:46 in the second period, but it was a lead that wouldn’t last long.<\/p>\n

“Being up 2-0, we kind of got complacent with ourselves,” Vesel said.<\/p>\n

North Dakota nearly got within one in the second period on a shot that hit the cross bar and trickled along the goal line, but after review it was called off.<\/p>\n

Near the end of the second period, Joel Messner was ejected for a 5:00 game misconduct penalty, served by Kyle Mountain, for checking Brendan O’Donnell from behind into the boards.<\/p>\n

The Mavs killed the penalty, but UND scored just seconds after it expired with a rush that left Massa out of position and unable to make the save.<\/p>\n

UNO continued to suffer from penalties when Avery Peterson was called for charging and Brian Cooper for tripping in the latter part of the third period.<\/p>\n

At 19:12, it finally caught up to the Mavericks when on a six-on-four due to the empty net, Drake Caggiula equalized on a tap-in goal and both sides skated to the end of regulation tied 2-2.<\/p>\n

It was the second time the two teams have needed overtime this season.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Omaha’s Joel Messner (5) clears the puck from the crease as North Dakota’s Bryn Chyzyk (29) looks on (photo: Michelle Bishop).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

“With the No. 1 team in the country, to get any kind of points at all … we all had our lists out there, who was going to be in the shootout,” Blais said. “It didn’t get there thanks to Ortega’s power-play goal.”<\/p>\n

With two shots off the pipe, a goal review and facing a five-on-three in overtime, it seemed like luck wasn’t with North Dakota Friday. Coach Dave Hakstol said they need to just keep playing their game.<\/p>\n

“It had nothing to do with luck; we played a good hockey game,” Hakstol said. “We played the way we play. We played hard for nearly 65 minutes, that’s what we do. We didn’t do anything different tonight.”<\/p>\n

With the buzz in Omaha at a new high for Mavericks hockey and the game welcoming a national audience, it seemed like the hype was too much to live up to.<\/p>\n

After another game-winner from the team’s savior, it’s safe to say Friday’s game delivered.<\/p>\n

“The crowd was another motivator,” Blais said. “Usually I don’t hear the crowd, but they were going pretty good and like we said, we gave them something to cheer about because I thought it was a great up and down hockey game.”<\/p>\n

Although the Mavs know how it feels to get past UND, they also know that this team is ranked No. 1 for a reason and that Saturday will be an even bigger challenge.<\/p>\n

“That’s not a happy team over there,” Massa said. “And as we learned in their building, beating them in a shootout and then the next night, they came out with vengeance and they came out with a three-point win. So, they’re No. 1 for a reason and we certainly can’t take anything lightly or for granted and can’t even be satisfied with tonight.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

OMAHA, Neb. — In the post-game press conference, goalie Ryan Massa patted Austin Ortega on the back and said, “What’s up hero?” Nebraska-Omaha’s hero scored his ninth game-winning goal of the year, the most in the NCAA, as the Mavericks knocked off No. 1 North Dakota in overtime at home. “Austin Ortega’s got a horseshoe […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"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":[],"coauthors":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20241"}],"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\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20241"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20241\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":171840503,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20241\/revisions\/171840503"}],"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=20241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20241"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=20241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}