Playing its first home game in more than a month, Niagara team rode the support of the boisterous 1,159 in attendance at Dwyer Arena to a 3-2 victory over CHA rival Bemidji State, breaking a five-game winless streak dating back to Nov. 8.<\/p>\n
The Purple Eagles used a balanced scoring attack that saw three different lines score goals in winning for the first time all season when they have been outshot or trailed after the first period.<\/p>\n
Despite having play in their defensive zone for much of the early first, it would be the Beavers who would strike first. Jeff McGill took advantage of a redirected puck and fired a quick slap shot from the right faceoff circle that surprised Niagara goalie Jeff VanNynatten high to the glove side.<\/p>\n
The Purple Eagles reeled off three straight goals in a 2:30 span midway through the second to capture momentum. Hannu Karru and Justin Cross scored even strength goals on bang-bang plays just 10 seconds apart. Barret Ehgoetz followed two minutes later with a power-play goal, extending his point-scoring streak to seven games. Joe Tallari added an assist on the play, making this the 12th straight game in which he has scored.<\/p>\n
Bemidji drew within one at the 16:44 mark of the second on Brendan Cook’s second goal of the season after some lengthy pressure in the Niagara zone.<\/p>\n
Ahead 3-2 entering the third, Niagara used a timely defensive play by Casey Handrahan in breaking up a 3-on-1 to help preserve the lead. Bemidji State had opportunities over the final 20, but was unable to capitalize. VanNynatten made 26 saves to earn his first victory since opening weekend.<\/p>\n
“We got a much needed win in a game that saw momentum change hands numerous times,” said Niagara coach Dave Burkholder. “Our goaltending and defense played very well as a group in shutting down the Bemidji attack.”<\/p>\n
Niagara moves to 5-11-1 (2-2-1 CHA) on the season and moves just two points behind second-place Bemidji in the CHA standings. The Purple Eagles return to action tomorrow night when they host the Beavers in the second of two (7 p.m.).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Playing its first home game in more than a month, Niagara team rode the support of the boisterous 1,159 in attendance at Dwyer Arena to a 3-2 victory over CHA rival Bemidji State, breaking a five-game winless streak dating back to Nov. 8. The Purple Eagles used a balanced scoring attack that saw three different […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"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\/3832"}],"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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3832"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3832\/revisions"}],"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=3832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3832"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=3832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}