St. Cloud State advance to the championship of the Florida College Classic Tuesday, winning a shootout 2-1 after tying No. 15 Maine 1-1 Tuesday in the opening game of the tournament. Each goaltender put in a quality night’s work, as SCSU’s Tim Boron stopped 26 shots and Maine’s Jimmy Howard saved 24.
The Huskies (8-9-2) will play Boston College, a 4-2 winner over Cornell in the tourney’s nightcap, in the title game Wednesday.
The game lived up to the tournament’s name as it was a classic battle from start to finish. St. Cloud State charted the first goal of the game at 13:32 of the second period when Grant Clafton scored with assists from Joe Jensen and Brock Hooton on the power play.
Maine (10-6-4) charged back on at 16:01 of the second period with a goal by Billy Ryan, as assists were added by Troy Barnes and Mike Lundin.
From that point, it was a goaltenders’ showcase, as Boron and Howard traded saves at each net. Boron then stopped six of seven shots in the shootout period to get the Huskies into the championship.
In the shootout, Maine took a 1-0 lead when Ryan scored. Grant Clafton forced a second round of shootout goals when he scored for the Huskies. To finalize SCSU’s title game plans, defender Justin Fletcher beat Howard high on the left side to gain the shootout honors.
In the game, SCSU had 25 shots in the game and Maine had 27 shots on goal. On the power play, SCSU was 1-of-6 and Maine was 0-of-5.
The championship is slated to start at 7:30 p.m. ET at Germain Arena. Cornell and Maine will appear in the consolation earlier in the afternoon.
