Monday 10: Ohio State eliminates Wisconsin from B1G playoffs, Lake Superior outlasts St. Thomas in CCHA postseason, Omaha sweeps North Dakota to wrap regular season

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Bemidji State players celebrate Eric Pohlkamp’s OT winner Friday night (photo: Brent Cizek).

Each week, USCHO.com will pick the top 10 moments from the past weekend in our Monday 10 feature.

1. Ohio State knocks out Wisconsin

In a stunning upset, last-place Ohio State took down Wisconsin on the road in a best-of-three Big Ten quarterfinal series, beating the Badgers 3-1 to advance to single-elimination semifinal play.

It’s the first time in the Big Ten’s relatively short hockey history that a seven seed upset a two seed in playoff action.

Scooter Brickey’s second-period goal put the Buckeyes up 2-0, and that goal held up as the game-winner when the Badgers scored an empty-netter late in the third.

The Buckeyes will play B1G regular season champ Michigan State in a single-elimination semifinal game in Munn Ice Arena Saturday.

Ohio State had four regular-season conference wins, and the Buckeyes’ only chance of playing in the NCAA tournament is to win the Big Ten playoff championship. This win is the 1,000th win in Ohio State hockey history.

While the Badgers will sit out the remainder of the Big Ten tournament, Wisconsin will advance to the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2010.

2. Lake Superior State upsets St. Thomas with six seconds to spare

After winning 4-1 Friday and dropping Saturday’s game 4-2, the Lakers took Sunday’s deciding game against the Tommies 3-2 and move on to play Bemidji State in the CCHA semifinals.

With six seconds remaining in regulation, Dawson Tritt picks up the rebound of Luke Levandowski’s shot.

The Lakers finished in seventh place in the CCHA regular season – but just five points behind the second-place Tommies. Six of the eight CCHA teams had from 34 to 39 points when the regular season ended.

3. Bemidji State continues to roll

With a quarterfinal sweep of Ferris State, Bemidji State extends its unbeaten streak to 10 games (9-0-1).

The Beavers outshot the Bulldogs 51-27 in Friday’s 5-4 overtime win, a game in which BSU had to come back from a two-goal deficit twice. Defenseman Eric Pohlkamp had three goals and two assists on the weekend, including the game winner less than a minute into OT Friday night.

Carter Jones scored the first goal in the Beavers’ 4-0 win Saturday. Mattias Sholl made 48 stops in the two-game set. Saturday’s shutout was the fifth of Sholl’s career.

4. It’s brooms all around in Atlantic Hockey quarterfinal play

All four best-of-three Atlantic Hockey quarterfinal series were concluded in two nights, with the top two seeds prevailing and upsets by No. 5 AIC and No. 6 Niagara.

Top seed RIT pummeled Robert Morris, 7-0 and 5-1. The Tigers ride a four-game win streak into next week’s semifinals, having outscored opponents 24-5 in that span. Tommy Scarfone made 21 saves in the shutout win, the ninth of his career.

It took double overtime Saturday for second seed Holy Cross to complete its sweep of Canisius. Jack Seymour scored at 2:53 in the second OT, just his fifth goal of the season and his first-ever game winner.

At 12:18 in OT Saturday, AIC’s Nico Somerville scored the game-winning goal over Air Force, giving the Yellow Jackets a 3-2 win to complete the upset sweep.

Niagara outscored Sacred Heart 11-4 in a two-game upset sweep. The Purple Eagles eliminated the Pioneers AHA quarterfinal action in 2023, too.

5. Havard, St. Lawrence, Rensselaer, Union move on in ECAC

ECAC quarterfinal action is set after four single-elimination first-round playoff games.

Among the bottom eight teams, three of the four top seeds in this round advance. Friday night, home Harvard beat Princeton 1-0 and St. Lawrence eliminated Yale, 4-2.

For Harvard, Ian Moore’s second goal of the season – fifth of his career – midway through the first period was the game winner as Aku Koskenvuo stopped all 38 shots he faced in his second shutout of the season.

Four different Saints scored and St. Lawrence never trailed in their win. Ben Kraws stopped 37-of-39 in the SLU net.

Saturday saw one upset, with last-place Rensselaer taking out Clarkson on the road, 3-2. The Engineers were up 3-0 by the middle of the third period. The Golden Knights scored twice late in the third. Clarkson outshot RPI 36-17 but couldn’t get more than those two late goals past Jack Watson, who finished the night with 34 saves.

Union handled Brown easily, winning 6-0 and outshooting the Bears 40-22. Kyle Chauvette stopped all 22 in his third shutout of the season.

6. Mavericks sweep Fighting Hawks in historic fashion

No. 16 Omaha swept No. 3 North Dakota in the final regular-season weekend of NCHC hockey, 3-2 and 4-1. It was the first time in program history that the Mavericks took a two-game set from the Fighting Hawks.

Perhaps the Mavs were even more pumped up for Saturday’s senior night game because of their pregame pep talk by the legendary Mike Kemp, the executive associate athletic director at Omaha and head coach of Maverick hockey for the program’s first 12 seasons.

Seven different Mavericks accounted for the scoring in the sweep. Simon Latkoczy had 32 saves in the Omaha net Friday and Seth Eisele stopped 38 for the Mavericks Saturday as North Dakota outshot Omaha 73-48 in the series.

7. Those teams with “Boston” in their names play good hockey

Boston College –No. 1 in the USCHO.com Poll and No. 1 in the PairWise rankings – ended the Hockey East regular season with a 6-4 road win over Merrimack Saturday.

The Eagles came from behind twice in the game. After a scoreless first period, the Warriors led 2-0 midway through the second, but BC answered with two shorthanded goals scored just over a minute apart later in the second – Jamie Armstrong at 15:54 and Will Smith at 17:00 – to tie the game.

After Merrimack took the lead again briefly at 1:06 in the third on Liam Dennison’s goal, the Eagles scored three goals within eight minutes to surge ahead 5-3. The teams exchanged goals in the final minute of play.

Meanwhile, Boston University was at home, dominating Vermont in a 6-1 win. Quinn Hutson earned his second hat trick of the season, scoring the first two goals of the game in the first period and adding a power-play marker with six seconds left in regulation.

8. Third-period heroics lift Black Bears over Minutemen twice

Clutch third-period goals gave Maine a sweep of Massachusetts in the final weekend of Hockey East play, with the Black Bears winning 2-1 and 4-3.

Thomas Freel broke Friday’s 1-1 tie with a power-play goal at 15:43 in the third, his sixth goal of the season, his second career power-play marker and his second career game winner.

On Saturday, Maine capitalized on two power plays to lead 2-0 midway through the first, but Massachusetts scored once in the first, second and third to lead 3-2 with less than 10 minutes remaining in regulation. At 11:22 in the third, Josh Nadeau netted his 16th of the season to tie the game, and at 18:43, Lynden Breen did this.

Maine finishes the season in third place in Hockey East standings, the best showing for the Black Bears since they tied for third in 2009-10. Saturday’s win was the 14th conference win for Maine this season, their best total since 2011-12.

9. Minnesota Duluth ends regular season with sweep of St. Cloud

Entering the weekend with six conference wins, Minnesota Duluth pulled off an upset sweep of third-place St. Cloud State, winning 6-5 in overtime Friday and 4-2 Saturday.

Trailing 5-3 late in the third period Friday, the Bulldogs tied the game on goals by Owen Gallatin and Luke Loheit.

In OT, Ben Steeves’ 24th goal of the season won the game.

Saturday night was a different story. After Connor McMenamin opened the scoring at 8:48 in the second to give Duluth the lead, the teams combined for three goals within the final two minutes of the period to make it 2-2 after two. Aiden Dubinsky’s power-play goal at 8:37 in the third was the game winner and Loheit hit the empty net at 19:59 for his second goal of the weekend.

10. The season’s over for two very good teams

In spite of a final record of 24-8-6, Arizona State’s season is over. Sitting tied at No. 19 in the PairWise Rankings, the Sun Devils are an extraordinarily talented, successful team that could not play its way into the NCAA tournament.

Like Arizona State, fellow independent Alaska (17-14-3) sees a very good season-long effort amount to just that – a very good season-long effort. The Nanooks are No. 27 in the PWR.

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