TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Minutemen, Tigers Advance To Classic Final

ADVERTISEMENT

By CRISTINA LEDRA, The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 30, 2007

TAMPA - The University of Massachusetts never had time to get comfortable with any of the leads it had against No. 6 Notre Dame in Saturday's opening game of the Lightning College Hockey Classic.

Notre Dame always had a quick response and threatened with a power play with under a minute remaining in the game, but the Minutemen held on for the 4-3 upset win, snapping the Irish's nine-game winning streak, the longest active streak in the country.

UMass coach Don Cahoon extended a streak of his own, improving to an 8-0 career record against Notre Dame.

"We came here with a goal to win the tournament and so far we're going good with that," said freshman James Marcou. "For big wins, this has got to be right up there. This is the highest-seeded team we've played so far and we battled through and we won."

UMass (8-3-5) faces Colorado College (12-5) in today's championship game at 8 p.m. after the Tigers' 3-2 win over Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in the second game of the Classic.

Notre Dame (16-5-0) and RPI (8-8-3) will play in the consolation game at 5 p.m.

UMass opened the scoring with four minutes left in the first period with a shot between the circles from Michael Kostka on the power play, but Notre Dame tied the game three minutes later on a power-play goal from Erik Condra.

Cory Quirk gave the lead back to the Minutemen 30 seconds into the second when his shot bounced off the shoulder of Irish goalie Jordan Pearce and into the net.

Notre Dame answered a minute later with a goal from Christian Hanson, last year's Classic MVP.

At 8:54 of the second, Notre Dame took the 3-2 lead on a shot from the point from Luke Lucyk that sailed over the glove of UMass goalie Paul Dainton.

UMass tied it back up with a goal from Justin Braun when he put in his own rebound late in the second period.

With six minutes remaining in the game, Marcou took a pass from behind the net and tapped in the game-winner.

Notre Dame had a power play with 50 seconds left but UMass killed off the man-advantage for the win.

In the second game, Stephen Schultz netted the game-winner for Colorado College on a deflection off a shot from the point from Nate Prosser with 7.6 left in the contest to complete the Tigers' comeback, making the program's first trip to Florida a memorable one.

The teams were scoreless after one period before RPI took a 2-0 lead on goals by Paul Kerins during a two-man advantage and a breakaway goal from Jake Morissette in the second.

The Tigers got on the board 2:47 into the third when Jimmy Kilpatrick scooped up an RPI turnover in the corner behind Engineers goalie Richard Bachman and walked in to score on him.

Kilpatrick tied the game on his second of the game with less than four minutes left on a high slap shot.

Reporter Cristina Ledra can be reached at (813) 948-4203 or cledra@tampatrib.com.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT