The actual saying is \u00e2\u20ac\u0153third time\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the charm,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d not \u00e2\u20ac\u0153fifteenth\u00e2\u20ac\u009d. But after Nebraska-Omaha\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 3-0 win over Ferris State in Game 1 of their CCHA first round playoff series on Friday night at Qwest Center Omaha, the Mavericks will likely be happy to excuse the misunderstanding.<\/p>\n
What had started out as a typical opening-game-of-the-playoffs chess match Friday turned into a comfortable win for the eighth seeded Mavericks, with forwards Alex Hudson and J.P. Platisha both scoring long-awaited goals in the second period before Matt Ambroz put the game out of reach in the third.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s tremendous for these kids to get proof that if you do play well and do the right things, good things can happen,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d UNO head coach Mike Kemp said. For the last two months they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve done those things and haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t had it work out their way.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
The Mavericks had gone a mind-boggling 14 games without an NCAA-recognized win coming into the playoffs, so any source of goals to the good would have been appreciated by the 4,380 in attendance on Friday. However, Hudson\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s and Platisha\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s strikes were particularly unexpected, just by virtue of how long it had been since each of them had last found the back of the net.<\/p>\n
Hudson opened the scoring at 5:28 of the second period on Friday with his first goal since scoring twice at Yale on Dec. 29, this time having forced a turnover high in the Ferris State zone before deking past a Bulldog defender and beating FSU goalie Taylor Nelson low to the far side of the net.<\/p>\n
Platisha would double the lead at 9:55, combining with JJ Koehler on a 2-on-1 before slipping the puck past Nelson, who had come to the top of his crease to challenge, for a shorthanded marker. It was the senior\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s first goal–his first point, even–since he became a hero in Maverick circles in last season\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s first-round matchup against Alaska, where he scored the series-clincher in the third overtime of Game 3.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153J.P.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s played so hard, and there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a guy who throughout his career has been a role player and hasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t been looked at to be a goal-scorer, but he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s come up big for us now two years in a row,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Kemp said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Over the last stretch of games, going back to at least (the Michigan series), he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s played very well, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s nice to see him get a little reward. <\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s kind of having that last month of your senior year that you hope seniors have.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\nFrom there, UNO senior goaltender Jerad Kaufmann took over, eventually amassing 24 saves on the night, making him the first keeper in Maverick history to earn a shutout in the postseason.<\/p>\n
Kaufmann, who was actually unaware that no Maverick goalie had ever achieved that feat, seemed happy with not only his performance, but of that of the whole team.
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It was a great game tonight all around,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Guys were blocking a ton of shots, and that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got to do in the playoffs, so they kept it pretty easy for me for the most part, so I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m very pleased with how we played.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
The shutout was a dream start to the playoffs for the Mavericks, but they still need another win over ninth seeded FSU if they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going to advance to the second round of the league playoffs, and the Bulldogs will be desperate to snap their own winless streak, a six-game losing skid dating back to mid-February.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I know we need to come out tomorrow and play hard,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d head coach Bob Daniels said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no such thing as (a team\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s turn to win), but we just need to go out there and play hard and see how we do. <\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s best-of-three, so you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got to win two, and we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re starting tomorrow the same way we started tonight. We just need two wins.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll try to get one when they meet up with UNO again on Saturday for Game 2 in Omaha.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The actual saying is \u00e2\u20ac\u0153third time\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the charm,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d not \u00e2\u20ac\u0153fifteenth\u00e2\u20ac\u009d. But after Nebraska-Omaha\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 3-0 win over Ferris State in Game 1 of their CCHA first round playoff series on Friday night at Qwest Center Omaha, the Mavericks will likely be happy to excuse the misunderstanding. What had started out as a typical opening-game-of-the-playoffs chess match […]<\/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\/9555"}],"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=9555"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9555\/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=9555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9555"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=9555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}