Tony Quesada turned heads — and pucks — once again for Holy Cross.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Quesada preserved the tie with two big stops around the 15-minute mark, including a glove save on Andy Sertich’s slapper from the point that was ticketed for the far inside edge.<\/p>\n
“I thought [Quesada] had four or five outstanding saves,” Holy Cross head coach Pearl said, “but in order for us to win that game, that’s what he has to do.”<\/p>\n
Early on, the Crusaders were buzzing, and though the Gophers appeared to get going midway through the frame, neither team put the puck in the net in an uneventful first period. Minnesota turned up the heat early in the second, pummeling Quesada on the power play, but again without results.<\/p>\n
Instead, the Crusaders brought the crowd at the Ralph — announced as 11,153 paid, a West\/Midwest Regional record — to its feet.<\/p>\n
At 8:49, Dale Reinhardt put Holy Cross on top with his 11th goal of the season. Off a turnover in the Minnesota end, Bartlett’s drop pass from along the goal line left Reinhardt wide-open for a scoop shot over Briggs’ glove and a 1-0 lead.<\/p>\n
The Crusaders had a chance to extend the lead on another power play after a Kris Chucko trip, but instead Minnesota knotted it up on a shorthander. Guyer led the play, hustling after a loose puck and feeding Mike Howe on a rush. Howe banged his shot off the post, then fired the rebound behind Quesada at 13:15.<\/p>\n
With the Holy Cross power play back on, McGregor again electrified the crowd just 31 seconds after Howe’s tally. With Phil Kessel off for a high-stick — making the Crusader advantage a five-on-three — McGregor took a cross-ice pass from James Sixsmith and powered a slapshot inside the left post for a 2-1 lead.<\/p>\n
Kessel, meanwhile, redeemed himself seconds after he stepped out of the box, joining Evan Kaufmann for a two-on-one that finished with Kessel slipping the puck through Quesada to draw the Gophers even at 15:45.<\/p>\n
Shots on goal in the second period were 14-6 in favor of Minnesota, but the scoreboard told of a even contest and a coming 20-minute tiebreaker — and when the third period failed to yield results, overtime and McGregor’s historic goal.<\/p>\n
That tally sends Minnesota home wondering what might have been, but the Gophers were sure that they didn’t look past their vanquishers.<\/p>\n
“It’s a one-and-done deal,” said Harrington of the NCAA tournament format. “There’s no way you can overlook a team. No. No.<\/p>\n
“No way.”<\/p>\n
Minnesota (27-9-5) ends its season short of the Frozen Four for just the second time in five seasons, while Holy Cross (27-9-2) will attempt to make more history Saturday against the winner of the North Dakota-Michigan semifinal, with the victor in that game advancing to Milwaukee.<\/p>\n
“After we had a bit of a celebration there, we started talking about [the next game],” Pearl said. “We lived to play another day, and now I guess the motto is that we want to practice on Tuesday.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In its NCAA tournament opener, among Holy Cross’ best weapons were determination and quiet confidence — not to mention the raucous approval of a record crowd at Ralph Engelstad Arena. Friday, the Crusaders turned those advantages into arguably the greatest upset in the history of the NCAA tournament, stunning top-seeded Minnesota 4-3 in overtime in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"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\/7473"}],"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\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7473"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7473\/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=7473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7473"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=7473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}