Fighting Hawks fall to 13-8-0 overall; host Omaha next weekend
GRAND FORKS, N.D. — Cornell University uses the nickname of “Big Red” for its athletic teams.
After completing a sweep of No. 5 North Dakota Saturday night at Ralph Engelstad Arena with a 3-1-win, 14th-ranked Cornell showed itself to be more “Big Ready” than anything,
Cornell rode the outstanding weekend goaltending of freshman Ian Shane (32 saves on 33 shots Saturday, 24 stops on 27 shots Friday) and two rebounds and a goal-mouth deflection Saturday to beat UND rookie netminder Jakob Hellsten (16 saves) and complete the non-conference sweep after Friday’s 4-3 win.
It was quite a turnaround, which was beaten twice at Arizona State the previous weekend.
Whereas the Big Red scored three times in the final 10 minutes to beat the Fighting Hawks Friday in rallying from a 3-1 deficit, Cornell scored twice in the first period and once in the third in outscoring UND 6-1 combined over the final 70 minutes of play over the two games in handing UND a rare two-game sweep at home.
Kyler Kovich and Brenden Locke scored on rebounds for the Big Red and Ondrej Psenicka deflected a Hank Kampf point shot past Hellsten for the three Cornell goals.
UND had taken a 1-0 lead on a power-play wrist shot high by Riese Gaber (his 9th) past the glove hand of Shane at the two-minute mark of the first period. The Hawks had a chance to build on the lead two minutes later when Mark Senden was awarded a penalty shot when he was hauled down on a semi-breakaway, but Shane stuffed his attempt to go 5-hole on his shot.
Kovoch and Psenicka scored at 6:26 and 16:39 on a rebound and deflection respectively to put Cornell ahead 2-1 after one period — and to stay.
UND’s failure to score on any rebounds on Shane and Cornell’s forwards finding loose pucks uncleared by UND defensemen turned out to be a major difference. Cornell improved to 11-3-1 overall and moved to No. 14 in the PairWise rankings while UND dropped to 13-8 overall and to No. 11 in the PairWise after beginning the weekend in a three-way tie for second.
“I know there were a lot of rebounds laying around,” UND coach Brad Berry said. “But that’s a team that swarms you in the defensive zone. And in front, they block a lot of shots.”
Cornell did just that to UND, while cashing in on two rebounds near the crease that were not cleared by UND.
Berry didn’t fault Hellsten at all. “Sharp,” he said of his play. “He did make a couple of saves tonight that were hard, tough saves. The ones we gave up tonight, those were tap-in goals, we have to have better coverage in front of him.
Cornell is a big, physical team, much like UND sees often in the National Collegiate Hockey Conference, in which UND sits in first place with 14 league games remaining.
“They’re big and fast,” UND defenseman Jake Sanderson said of Cornell, “but so are we. We just need to match that. This weekend, we didn’t. But like I’ve been saying, and other guys on the team will say, we just need to stick together, stay positive and have a good week of practice.”
UND’s top goal on the list to accomplish is directly ahead of it, with NCHC play resuming next weekend at The Ralph when Omaha visits for two games. Four teams from the NCHC (St. Cloud, Denver, Duluth and Western Michigan) all rank ahead of UND now in the PairWise, but UND leads all of them in the NCHC standings in the chase for the league title.
But still, getting swept at home stings. “That sucks,” said Gaber, UND’s lone goal-scorer Saturday. “We have a lot of new faces this year (14). Losing at home, you never like to do that. Give them credit, they’re a good team, but so are we. I don’t think we matched what they brought this weekend.”
The last team to sweep UND at Ralph Engelstad Arena was Western Michigan. The Broncos did that Nov. 16-17 of 2018. UND had played 22 home series since then without being swept.
Gaber, too, had his focus in the future in his post-game comments to the media. “We have to bring our ‘A’ game and be ready,” he said. “Obviously these ones hurt for the PairWise. All we can do now is stick together and look forward ahead to (next) weekend.”
NOTES: Even with students gone on Christmas break, there 11,192 tickets sold for Saturday’s game . . . Berry said the status of senior forward Gavin Hain, who was injured in Friday’s game and left the arena on crutches, is “week-to-week” rather than day-to-day. . . UND was 1-for-4 on the power play with 3 total shots, Cornell 0-4 with 6 shots …UND won the faceoff battle 34-29 with Connor Ford winning 20 of the 30 draws he took . . . Defenseman Ethan Frisch led UND in shots on goal with 5, followed by defenseman Cooper Moore and Senden with 4 . . . Cornell racked up 18 blocked shots to 9 for UND.
Game Recap: Men’s Hockey | 1/8/2022 10:54:00 PM | Virg Foss, FightingHawks.com