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COLORADO SPRINGS — The UND hockey team was looking for redemption in their series against Colorado College, but they only found defeat.
“We got outworked,” Captain Riese Gaber said. “Doesn’t matter how good of a team you are; it all comes down to puck battles, puck races, and I thought in that department we got beat pretty bad.”
The Colorado College Tigers swept the University of North Dakota Fighting Hawks on Feb. 16 and 17 in Colorado Springs, losing 7-1 Friday night and 6-2 Saturday night. Previously, Colorado College swept UND in the Ralph Engelstad Arena, winning 3-2 in overtime in both games.
Special teams were a huge factor on Friday night, as Head Coach Brad Berry predicted before the series.
“Power plays are tough to come by these days. You have to earn everything you get,” Berry said. “We want to get on the powerplay and score goals but at least get momentum, and that helps too with our five or five plays. Specialty teams are going to be huge.”
Both UND and CC had two chances on the powerplay in the first period, and both teams went one for two, tying the game at one. But late in the first period, CC struck again, regaining the lead with under two minutes left to play in the period.
CC dominated the second period, outshooting UND 12-4. They capitalized on the powerplay, stretching their lead to two goals. UND challenged, but the goal stood. The Tigers scored again late in the period to make it 4-1. UND challenged again, but the challenge failed. CC converted on the resulting power, giving the Tigers a four-goal lead. After CC’s fifth goal, Hobie Hedquist came in for Ludvig Persson with less than four minutes left in the second period.
Berry highlighted the power play goals in the second as a key turning point in the game.
“We gave up four power play goals… and it’s not too many times that you’re going to win a game when you give up four on the kill,” Berry said. “That team works hard. They work extremely hard, and they had more guys working than we did tonight.”
CC scored another power-play goal five minutes into the third period, giving freshman Zaccharya Wisdom a hat trick; he scored both power-play goals in the second. 12 minutes into the third period, Wisdom, on the breakaway, buried his own rebound to score his fourth goal of the game and CC’s seventh.
Wisdom was happy about his first college hat trick and career-high goals in a game but acknowledged that he could not celebrate too much when UND would return to the rink hungry.
“I can’t lie, it feels great,” Wisdom said. “We got another game tomorrow. So, I can’t get too high. But I mean, it feels real good.”
CC won 7-1, with UND getting outshot 12-7 in the final period. This marks the seventh straight game that CC has held UND to two or less goals and UND’s first regulation NCHC loss. It also snapped UND’s 21-game unbeaten streak.
Gaber felt that UND could have done more to generate offense in Friday’s game.
“There’s a lot more we can do offensively and keep plays alive longer,” Gaber said. “Get quick to pucks a lot more and just create more buzz in the O-zone. We had some shifts, but we obviously need more in that department.”
UND opened the scoring in Saturday’s game, with Abram Wiebe scoring his first collegiate goal to give UND the lead. However, less than a minute later, CC would answer back, tying the game. Then UND got a chance on the five-minute major late in the first, and Cameron Berg scored on that power play to give UND the one-goal advantage. UND left the first period up 2-1, outshooting the Tigers.
Colorado College Head Coach Kris Mayotte thought UND came out hard in the first period.
“They made the push that you expect them to make,” Mayotte said. “A lot of what we had to endure early was a lot of PK time… so we had a lot of guys step up in that scenario.”
UND held onto their 2-1 lead and dominated for the first half of the second, outshooting the Tigers 33-10 at the 10-minute mark in the period. While they got into penalty trouble a bit in the second, but unlike the night before, the penalty kill was able to shut down CC on the manned advantage. With less than three minutes left in the third period, CC tied the game at two.
That goal was instrumental in CC’s dominant third period, according to Mayotte.
“That goal at the end of the second was huge. It allowed us to go in the locker room feeling like you’re a period away, you’re a goal away,” Mayotte said. “It allowed us to reset and feel like, ‘Okay, hey, we haven’t been good for 40 minutes. They’ve been really good for 40 minutes. None of that matters. We got 20 minutes to go and play our game, and we’ll have a chance to win it.’”
CC exploded offensively in the third period. They scored their third and game-winning goal five minutes into the period, harnessing the momentum of their earlier power play.
“Our powerplay got a lot of momentum for us,” Mayotte said. “It might not have gone in for them in that last one, but they built.”
CC bolstered their lead five minutes later, making it 4-2 with 10 minutes left to play. Less than a minute later, Gleb Veremyev would score his second goal in one minute to put the Tigers up 5-2. With eight minutes left, Berry pulled the goalie to get the extra attacker. Noah Laba buried the empty net goal to put CC up 6-2 with six minutes left in the game.
CC won 6-2 and completed their first four-game sweep of UND in CC’s history. It was also the eighth straight game that CC has held UND to two or fewer goals, even though UND outshot the Tigers 45-32 in the game.
Mayotte credited the win to goaltender Kaiden Mbereko, who made 43 saves to help the Tigers win the game.
“Mbereko was special tonight… He was the player of the game, no question about it,” Mayotte said. “There’s no doubt that Berkey [Mbereko] got us that thing tonight. He made unbelievable save after unbelievable save and allowed us to get going.”
On the other side of the ice, Persson had a less-than-ideal game, allowing five goals on 32 shots after being pulled in the second period of Friday’s 7-1 loss when he also allowed five goals.
UND remains just one point ahead of St. Cloud State, which had a bye week, for the top position in the NCHC. The Hawks return home to the Ralph Engelstad Arena Feb. 23 and 24 to play NCHC opponent Minnesota-Duluth, whom they swept in Duluth earlier this season.
Maeve Hushman is a Dakota Student Sports Reporter. She can be reached at [email protected].
