Last weekend, BGSU hockey (5-4-3, 5-2-3) traveled to St. Paul, Minnesota, to face the St. Thomas Tommies (5-6-2, 2-2-1) at UST’s brand-new Lee and Penny Anderson Arena.
The Falcons captured two out of a possible six points towards the CCHA standings after claiming a 3-2 overtime victory on Friday night and falling 6-2 on Saturday.
Going into the weekend, Bowling Green was tied with the Bemidji State Beavers (9-5-2, 7-1-2) for first place in the CCHA standings with each team having 17 points apiece. Bemidji has now jumped to sole leader of the CCHA with 23 points after sweeping the Northern Michigan University Wildcats (0-14-0, 0-6-0) while BG is barely holding on to second place in the standings with 19 points.
One major factor that prevented the Falcons from capturing more points was the team’s third-period collapses during both games of the series.
Over the weekend, Bowling Green was outscored 6-1 in the third period.
In Friday night’s game, BG entered the third period leading the game 2-0. St. Thomas would then outshoot the Falcons 15-2 and would score the tying goal with less than five seconds remaining in regulation. While Bowling Green would go on to win the game via an overtime winner scored by junior forward Ben Doran, the third period cost Bowling Green three points, and as they left the game with only two points towards the CCHA standings.
On Saturday, Bowling Green entered the third frame of play trailing a 2-1 game. St. Thomas would then score three goals within the six minutes of the period to give themselves a 5-1 lead. Despite BGSU outshooting the Tommies 18-13 in the period and senior defenseman and captain Dalton Norris scoring to cut the lead to 5-2, an empty net goal from St. Thomas senior forward and captain Lucas Wahlin put the game on ice and gave UST a 6-2 victory.
Bowling Green will look to get back on track over the next two weekends as they have back-to-back home series against the Princeton Tigers (5-2-0, 2-2-0) on Nov. 28 and 29 and then play Northern Michigan (0-14-0, 0-6-0) on Dec. 5 and 6 to lead into the winter break.
Falcon Media Sports Network’s Ben Corak and Daniel Ridenour have the call for both Princeton games on WBGU 88.1 FM.
