In a matchup that harkened back to a crisp afternoon in Albany last April 4, North Dakota beat Michigan State, 5-4, in overtime to snap the Spartans’ four-year streak of Great Lakes Invitational titles.<\/p>\n
The title game of the tournament proved to be a thrilling rematch of the semifinals of the 2001 Frozen Four. As was the case in the previous game, and a total of 11 straight games since 1980, the Fighting Sioux denied the Spartans of a victory.<\/p>\n
The game’s outcome held equal importance to the two programs, whose paths have diverged widely since last season.<\/p>\n
If anything could jump-start North Dakota (9-9-1) from a seemingly dismal first half, it was the sight of winger Brandon Bochenski slapping a failed wraparound attempt off the stick of Andy Schneider through Ryan Miller’s legs at 7:09 of the overtime period. The goal gave the Fighting Sioux their second overtime victory in as many nights and the 2001 GLI championship.<\/p>\n
Some on the Fighting Sioux saw the game, and the tournament, as a building block, at least. “We needed to start the second half of the season with some confidence and some chemistry on this team,” senior defenseman Aaron Schneekloth said.<\/p>\n
Michigan State (13-4-2) didn’t see it as a single loss — the end of the GLI streak and the extension of consecutive losses to North Dakota were viewed with due consideration.<\/p>\n
“We’re learning as we go, we can’t mope, whine and complain,” Miller said. “We need to use this as an incentive.”<\/p>\n
After first-period goals by North Dakota’s James Massen and Michigan State’s Brock Radunske, North Dakota unleashed a scoring flurry that was reminiscent of last year’s dominance.<\/p>\n
At the 10:16 mark, left winger Ryan Bayda skated in on Miller — though Miller thwarted his backhand attempt, the junior’s momentum knocked Miller out of position. With Miller flattened and halfway out of the crease, Skarperud lunged at the loose puck with a backhand and tapped it off Miller and in for his sixth goal, his second of three points in the game and the 2-1 advantage.<\/p>\n
Less than two minutes later, the Fighting Sioux struck again. Rory McMahon streaked down the right side and fed the puck to a cutting Ryan Hale. Hale reached out and gently directed the puck past Miller’s left foot for his fifth goal and the 3-1 lead.<\/p>\n
Finally, with the Spartans’ down two men, the Fighting Sioux seemed to put Michigan State away. Defenseman Aaron Schneekloth took a feed from Skarperud and beat Miller with a point blast for the three-goal lead.<\/p>\n
The Fighting Sioux rekindled the dying embers of a memorable 2000-2001 campaign with its three-goal explosion in the first period, but couldn’t quell Michigan State’s tenacity in the second and third periods, when the Spartans struck back with three straight goals of their own.<\/p>\n
Liles stepped up first for Michigan State at the 4:23 mark of the second. The junior tapped the puck past Siembida’s right skate for the power-play goal and a two-goal deficit.<\/p>\n
Then, in the third period, Liles struck again. All alone between the circles, the defenseman took a feed from left winger Kevin Estrada and beat Siembida on the glove side at the period’s 12:09 mark.<\/p>\n
With the Fighting Sioux reeling, the object for Michigan State consisted of beating the clock. Fast concluded the comeback with a little over a minute and a half left, taking a Duncan Keith pass and wristing the puck through Siembida’s five-hole for the 4-4 tie. Keith and Fast accounted for points six and seven by the Michigan State defense on the night.<\/p>\n
But in the end, a streak ended and a streak continued.<\/p>\n
“We’re getting better,” North Dakota coach Dean Blais said. “We’re thrilled.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
North Dakota denied Michigan State a fifth straight Great Lakes Invitational title, but only after a three-goal rally by MSU forced Brandon Bochenski’s overtime winner. The 5-4 decision gave UND much-needed momentum heading into the second half.<\/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:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2726"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2726"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2726\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2726"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=2726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}