Brent Walton’s first career hat trick, including his game-winning goal 12 seconds into overtime, lifted Western Michigan to a 4-3 victory over Bemidji State in nonconference action from John S. Glas Fieldhouse.<\/p>\n
With the win, WMU remains unbeaten in non-league play (5-0-0) against College Hockey America opponents this season.<\/p>\n
The Broncos trailed by two goals late in the game after BSU took a 3-2 lead on captain Andrew Murray’s tally at 12:53 of the third period. Walton pulled WMU within a goal with a deflection just under the crossbar on Jonathan Lupa’s shot at 17:30. Walton’s second goal was not credited immediately by the referee, but eventually counted after officials consulted with the goal judge. <\/p>\n
The Beavers (8-7-0) opened a 2-0 lead in the first period, building a 14-7 advantage in shots. Matt Pope scored just 14 seconds in, slipping a backhander past Daniel Bellissimo. Luke Erickson added another even-strength goal on a one-timer with 2:45 left in the period.<\/p>\n
WMU (9-7-1) rallied with a pair of second-period goals, as Brent Walton and Ryan Mahrle struck four minutes apart. Walton blasted a slapshot off a rebound in front of freshman goalie Matt Climie on the power play while Mahrle capitalized on a two-on-one rush.<\/p>\n
“We knew coming in it was going to be a hard-fought game and that’s how it turned out,” said WMU coach Jim Culhane. “We gave up two quick ones but I’m proud of the way we responded to come back.”<\/p>\n
The teams square off again Saturday night at Glas Fieldhouse, starting at 7:05 CST.<\/p>\n
Notes<\/b><\/p>\n
WMU was the only CCHA school in action Friday … Walton took over the CCHA goal-scoring lead with his 14th marker of the season. He was also named the game’s No. 1 star … Bemidji State entered as the nation’s seventh-highest scoring team …Western is 23-10-3 versus nonconference opponents over the past five seasons.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Brent Walton’s first career hat trick, including his game-winning goal 12 seconds into overtime, lifted Western Michigan to a 4-3 victory over Bemidji State in nonconference action from John S. Glas Fieldhouse. With the win, WMU remains unbeaten in non-league play (5-0-0) against College Hockey America opponents this season. The Broncos trailed by two goals […]<\/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\/5837"}],"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=5837"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5837\/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=5837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5837"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=5837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}