The bottom of the Central Collegiate Hockey Association is now set as the Falcons clinched the 11th spot in the CCHA Tournament.
The Falcons fell to Lake Superior State 2-0 Friday, but bounced back to defeat the Lakers 3-2 in overtime Saturday.
“It was a good weekend,” head coach Scott Paluch said. “We went down and played very good for a lot of the weekend and unfortunately Friday we fell into the same trap that has plagued us the last couple of games in that we did a lot of things well… Unfortunately their goaltender, Matt Violin played extremely well and didn’t let anything past him.”
The Falcons held a 31-19 shot advantage Friday, including a 28-8 shot advantage in the last two periods, but were unable to find the net.
“Sometimes you just can’t control a hot goaltender and their goaltender certainly did everything necessary to win a hockey game,” Paluch said.
Tyler Masters started in net for the Falcons Friday stopping 17 of 19 shots faced in 58:10 of action.
For the final 1:50 of the game Paluch pulled Masters giving the Falcons an extra attacker, but they still could not register a goal.
“It was a good start to the weekend for us in terms of how we performed,” Paluch said. “[We were] able to come back Saturday and do a lot of the same things well. [We were] able to score a goal early to give a little bit of confidence.”
Captain D’Arcy McConvey put the Falcons on the board first at 17:57 in the first period.
The Lakers tied the game up in the second period, but assistant captain Tyler Knight scored the Falcons second goal to give them a 2-1 lead. Knight’s short-handed goal came at 11:57 in the second period.
“We had a 2-1 lead for most of the game and a lot of the third period, Jordan [Sigalet] was making a lot of good saves,” Paluch said. “Then when Lake Superior tied the game up with three minutes to go I thought we played our best hockey of the weekend after that.”
LSSU’s Ryan Reid tied the game at 16:45 in the final period for his first goal of the season to send the game into overtime.
“The last three and a half minutes of regulation and then almost five minutes of overtime we played exceptionally well,” Paluch said. “We went out on the attack and really wanted to win the hockey game.”
Mike Falk scored the game-winning goal for the Falcons with just nine seconds remaining in overtime to give BG a 3-2 victory over the Lakers.
“It was an interesting scenario in that we had a face-off in our end with 25 seconds left,” Paluch said. “We did a great job defensively and then we broke out on the attack. D’Arcy McConvey carried the puck in and tried to make a pass across, but didn’t get through. Then he retrieved the puck… D’Arcy got it down to Steve Brudzewski, who cycled it down to Falk. [Falk] was able to get out in front of the net about 15 feet right in front of the goaltender. It was a great snapshot right past Violin’s elbow. It was a terrific play.”
Sigalet earned his sixth win of the season after making 33 saves for the Falcons.
BG is now 8-21-3 overall and 5-18-3 in the CCHA.
