North Dakota’s season was ended by Western Michigan when it was defeated 4-2 in the NCHC Frozen Faceoff semifinal at the Xcel Energy Center last Friday.
It ends the season 21-15-2 (14-9-1 NCHC) and ranked 18th in the pairwise.
“It’s tough,” UND Head Coach Brad Berry told the Grand Forks Herald. “It’s a tough moment after that game. I want to thank our team for battling the whole year. I know we went through a little bit of adversity, up and down, but I couldn’t be prouder of the way these guys battled tonight and represented the University of North Dakota.”
The Fighting Hawks kept the game close as it was tied 1-1 going into the third, but the Broncos grabbed the lead seven minutes into the third and did not give it back.
“It was a low-scoring game,” Berry told the Grand Forks Herald. “T.J. played outstanding. He gave us another chance to win tonight. He was amazing. We didn’t give him enough goal support. It was a 2-1 game. There were two empty-netters, but whatever. At the end of the day, it was a 2-1 game. Usually, the first one to three in this conference wins and we didn’t get to three. That was a problem.”
It was a gutting loss that marked the last NCHC tournament game at the Xcel Energy Center as the playoffs are being moved to campus sites next season.
“Obviously, we came up short,” UND goalie T.J. Semptimphelter told the Grand Forks Herald. “I think all the guys are heartbroken. We believed we could do it until the very end. It’s something this team has shown all year, resiliency and fighting until the very end. I’m so proud of our guys.”
Denver defeated Arizona State 4-2 in the other semifinal ending the Sun Devils season.
Western Michigan took the Frozen Faceoff Title after coming back from a 3-0 deficit to win 4-3 in double overtime against Denver.
Western Michigan now joins 2020-21 UND as the only two teams to win the NCHC playoff and regular season titles in the same season.
Western Michigan and Denver are the only NCHC teams that made the NCAA Tournament.
“Any time you rely on trying to come down here and win the NCHC playoff championship, we’ve done it before at home in the COVID year, but to rely on that, that’s tough to do,” Berry told the Grand Forks Herald. “You have to build it up early in the year. That means your non conference record.”
“Our league is a really good league. But there are only two teams in our conference going to the postseason national tournament. That said, not only us, but a lot of teams in our league didn’t have great non conference outcomes. We have to be better at that next year.”
UND’s young roster will look to regroup during the offseason and bring the experience from this season to the next.
Elijah Andrews is the Dakota Student Sports Reporter. He can be reached at elijah.andrews@und.edu.
