The men’s hockey team finished the regular season with two losses (4-3, 4-1) to Notre Dame and team’s next game is against Michigan State in the first-round of the CCHA Tournament (March 8 to 10).
The scoring started at 6:09 in the first period Friday when Notre Dame’s Paul Harris slid one past goaltender Tyler Masters. However, Notre Dame’s lead didn’t last long as seniors Ryan Wetterberg and captain Greg Day had a 2-on-1 breakaway at 7:00 that ended in a goal to tie the game, 1-1.
The Falcons scored seven minutes later to gain their only lead of the evening as D’Arcy McConvey netted a goal off of his own rebound, but the Fighting Irish came back and scored two more goals before the period ended to give them a 3-2 lead at the first intermission.
“One of the keys for us was to play in their end of the rink,” said BG head coach Buddy Powers. “They did a good job of getting the puck deep, cycling the puck and jumping their defense into the play. Our defense and forwards couldn’t control them.”
Notre Dame increased its lead to 4-2 in the second period, but the Falcons were not about to go down without a fight.
McConvey scored his second goal of the night at 3:03 in the third to cut Notre Dame’s lead in half.
“I thought we had some chances, but their goaltender kept some pucks out of the net in the third period,” Powers said.
Saturday was a different story for the Falcons as the Fighting Irish went on top with a 2-0 lead in the first period.
“I thought the difference in the game (Saturday) was that we had empty-net chances that we missed,” Powers said. “Both teams played much closer. I thought we checked a lot better.”
The Falcons might have looked better, but the score didn’t show it. BG had several missed opportunities, including a chance in the first period by sophomore Roger Leonard, who was unable to capitalize on an empty net as Notre Dame’s goalie, Morgan Cey, was caught out of the net.
Then the Falcons had a perfect chance to get back in the game late in the first period when they had a two-man advantage that lasted a minute and 29 seconds, but they failed to score.
“We didn’t capitalize on the 5-on-3 chance early on,” Powers said. “We’re the type of team that we can’t afford to miss those opportunities. And when you do you end up having to pull the goalie with two minutes left to get the offense going.”
“Stopping them on the 5-on-3 in the first period was huge,” said Notre Dame head coach Dave Poulin. “Morgan made a couple of big stops and our penalty killers really shut them down.”
With the second period winding down Notre Dame added to their lead, scoring at 16:07 to go up 3-0.
The Falcons had another missed opportunity in the second period as Day and McConvey had a 2-on-1 breakaway.
BG came out on fire in the third period as Day passed the puck to McConvey who wristed the puck past Cey at 1:29 to cut Notre Dame’s lead to 3-1.
Then, with just 43 seconds left, the Fighting Irish added an empty-net goal to their lead to end the game with a 4-1 margin. The Falcons will travel to Munn Ice Arena in East Lansing, Mich., Friday to face-off against Michigan State in the first round of the CCHA Tournament.
“Going to Munn has always been a difficult thing for Bowling Green throughout its history,” Powers said. “It’s a tough place to win. In the playoffs you never know. We’re a heavy, heavy underdog and yet if everything gets aligned right you never can tell what’s going to happen. We could go in there and get ourself an upset. That’s got to be the focal point of the week, to try and go in there and knock off one of the big dogs in the league.”
