North Dakota advances. After two tightly-contested, physical games, the Fighting Hawks dispatched Omaha, ending the Mavericks’ season. A pair of two-goal periods put the Hawks in a winning position last night.
Frustrating First
Over the weekend, Omaha proved tough to crack through the first 20 minutes. On Friday night, the Mavericks led the Hawks after one. Last night, the teams were knotted together after the opening stanza, leaving UND frustrated in the best-of-three finale.
“It was a tight, close game in the first period,” Dane Jackson recounted. “I thought the first was kind of back and forth.”
Omaha scored first, led into the game by Maxime Pellerin (So.), who scored the goal on Friday night to put the Mavs up after one. North Dakota knew it needed to kick its game into gear after the goal to avoid the risk of falling further behind.
As the Hawks chased the game, they spent a good amount of time in the UNO zone, finding sticks to create opportunities. With five minutes remaining in the opening stanza, Mac Swanson (So.) found the back of the net for his first of the night to light the lamp for UND.
Capitalizing on movement in the line chart, the Alaskan has proven his worth in the young team, averaging a point per game in the last six games. In the second half of the season, Swanson has picked up season-highs in shots (5, 1/16/26), goalscoring (2, 3/7/2026), and blocked shots (3, 1/10/26), establishing himself as a game-day fixture.
Two-Thirds
After going into the locker room tied, North Dakota was ready to build more momentum. The home side started the second stanza buzzing, showing a more dominant style of play than it had in the period up to this point.
Tyler Young (Sr.) broke the seal less than five minutes in, receiving a pass on the far side from Ollie Josephson (Fr.) that he quickly roped into the net past Simon Latkoczy (Sr.). The Merrimack transfer, who has become a staple in the UND lineup, scored his second point (1-1—2) in two games with the goal. Young took home third star of the game after bagging the game-winner.
Through a scoreless power play to each side and a 4-on-4, the second period continued to be gritty, but North Dakota held the upper hand throughout, seeking a result.
Another unanswered goal came with seconds remaining in the period, scored by Will Zellers (Fr.). The forward missed Friday night’s game due to a surprise illness, but felt confident in his ability to play upon his arrival at the Ralph yesterday. Zellers took three points (1-2—3) from the game last night and was named the second star of the game after the buzzer.
In the final frame, North Dakota continued to bring the game to Omaha. The Fighting Hawks put 9 shots on goal, but failed to put the puck past an impressive Simon Latkoczy. The third unanswered goal came after the Slovakian skated to the visitor’s bench, courtesy of Dylan James (Sr.). The empty-netter came as James’ fourth goal against the Mavericks this season.
Though many in the building thought the scoring had concluded, a brief chance for UND on the power play set to change their minds. Mac Swanson sent his second into the net, putting the home side up 5-1 before the buzzer.
“Rivals” Run Astray
Omaha was not able to make a difference against UND last night. The Mavericks were limited to their early goal, forced out of the game by North Dakota’s defensive regime. The shielding effort against the visitors came largely pre-planned, as Dane Jackson said after the game.
“They have a lot of strong, good players,” the UND coach explained. “[When] you look at their lineup, they have three lines with a lot of guys close to 20 points, so when we were pre-scouting them, [we] knew that they — with a good goaltender and a solid forward group — were gonna be hard to beat.”
“I thought we did a good job of [fighting battles] tonight, not giving them too much, and then slowly taking over some parts of the game to create some offense.”
Mike Gabinet’s team has fallen to the Hawks in all six meetings this season, lengthening the Mavericks’ loss column in both regular-season and postseason meetings. For the third time in four years, UND ended Omaha’s playoff hopes.
Quick Words from the Winners
- Dane Jackson on the semifinal and the week ahead: “It’ll be interesting, obviously, we’re super excited to be able to stay in the Ralph and have a great crowd here. Hopefully, people are accepting their tickets or buying their tickets for the Saturday game. These guys will get a couple days off, and we’ll make sure we’re having some fun at the rink and working on some deep details.”
- E.J Emery on regaining Sunday as a rest day: “We want to get as much rest as we can for next week. Closing out in two is awesome, [now we] get Sunday to rest.”
- Mac Swanson on the challenge Omaha posed: “It’s really hard [to beat them], especially how hard they come on the forecheck. They’re not easy to play against, especially when we’re trying to end their season. [That’s] kinda the hardest thing to do in sports.”
Next week…
The Hawks will extend their playoff home stand next week in the Frozen Faceoff semifinal round. 4-seed Minnesota Duluth — which held North Dakota to eight points from a possible 12 this season — will visit Grand Forks on Saturday for the single-elimination game.
Puck-drop on the NCHC semifinal at the Ralph Engelstad Arena will be at 6:07 p.m. on Saturday, Mar. 14. The game will be featured on Midco Sports, and a streaming option will be available on NCHC.tv, with a subscription on offer at a discount for the playoffs. Audio listeners can tune in to the Fighting Hawks Radio Network via iHeart Radio, the Fighting Hawks website, or on 96.1 FM (The Fox) for local listeners.
Anthony Dillett is a Dakota Student Sports Reporter. He can be reached at [email protected] and on X @adillettgf.
