Despite being out-shot 54 to 23, the Bowling Green hockey team erased a three goal deficit to earn a 4-4 tie on Friday night with Central Collegiate Hockey Association rival Notre Dame.
Jordan Sigalet stopped 50 of 54 shots on the night to keep the Falcons in striking distance. Including a 28 save performance in the second period as he faced 29 shots from the Irish.
John Mazzei and James Unger both had a goal and an assist on the night to lead the team in scoring. BG had 10 different players get points on the night.
“I thought our bench and locker room were outstanding,” head coach Scott Paluch said. “We never felt like we were out of it. We just couldn’t generate any offense, but we knew Siggy (Sigalet) would keep us in the game there.”
The Irish came out hot from the start and jumped on BG early on. Cory McLean and Wes O’Neill both scored power-play goals in the first 10 minutes of the first to give the Irish a 2-0 lead just 9:27 into the game.
In the second period, the Irish made sure Sigalet kept busy in the net, as they put up 29 shots in the period to just five for the Falcons. However, BG out-scored the Irish in the period 2-1.
Following an Evan Rankin goal that made it 3-0 Irish just 4:11 into the period, Unger started the Falcon comeback. His power-play goal in front of the net off a pass from Jonathan Matsumoto and Michael Hodgson made it 3-1 just over a minute and a half after the goal by Rankin.
Five minutes later, Ryan Minnabarriet stole an Irish pass on the left side of the net and fired it over to Chris Pedota on the right circle. His wrist shot was re-directed in front by Ben Geelan to make it 3-2 at 10:45.
The two teams played evenly throughout the final period as each team got 12 shots on net.
BG completed their comeback 8:17 into the final period as they once again capitalized on the power-play.
Mazzei tied the game on a shot from the right side of the net off a pass from behind by Alex Foster. Rich Meloche also assisted on the goal.
Just over three minutes later, Derek Whitmore got a rebound off the boards on the left side of the net and beat Irish goalie Morgan Cey up top to give BG a 4-3 lead.
Sigalet made big saves for the Falcons down the stretch, but after the Irish pulled Cey in the final minute they capitalized on the extra man advantage.
With three seconds left in the game, Irish defensemen Chris Trick sent a pass from the left point to the right side of the net where it found O’Neill. O’Neill put it by Sigalet to make it 4-4 and send it overtime.
The Irish got five shots off in the extra session, but Sigalet helped BG hang on for a big CCHA point. BG took three out of four available points on the weekend and moved to 4-1-1 on the year with a CCHA record of 2-1-1.
“To be down 3-0 and have an opportunity to win the game is really big,” Paluch said. “I’m proud of our guys. Our special teams put us in a hole early on, but we really found ourselves in the second period and developed some good energy. To overcome that goal at the end then and get a point is really big for our team.”
“It was a tough break for our team to let them score with three seconds left, but it felt pretty good to comeback since we fought really hard to comeback,” Unger said, who had a goal and an assist on the night. “We knew if we played it out, we could comeback and have a chance to win the game. Our goal was to get to overtime and we reached that with our third goal.”
The BG power-play went 2-6 on the night and they killed off 5-7 for the Irish.
