St. Cloud State (4-6-1, 3-5-1 WCHA) collected another victory over a nationally ranked opponent on Friday with a 3-2 win over No. 7 North Dakota before a crowd of 6,054 at the National Hockey Center in St. Cloud, Minn.
In action against a top 15 team for the ninth time this season, SCSU battled back from a 1-0 deficit to gain the win. SCSU junior Nate Raduns charted the game winner on an unassisted goal at 10:37 of the third period.
“This was his (Raduns) best game of the season,” SCSU coach Bob Motzko said. “The last few weeks he has really been coming on for us, and it paid off tonight.”
Raduns’ heroics came on the heels of the game tying goal by SCSU freshman John Swanson. Swanson brought the crowd to its feet with a goal at 9:47. Sophomore forward Matt Hartman and freshman forward Michael Olson added the assists on Swanson’s goal, which was his first as a Husky.
North Dakota started the game’s offense at 5:29 of the first period with a goal by Mike Prpich. Erik Fabian had the assist. In the second period, SCSU tied the game with a goal by senior Konrad Reeder at 3:05. Sophomore defender Aaron Brocklehurst provided the assist on the play. UND jumped back into the lead with a goal by Jonathan Toews at 6:03.
In the closing minute of play, the Sioux pulled their goalie but failed to produce a score. SCSU goalie Bobby Goepfert was impressive throughout the evening with 28 saves. Philippe Lamoureux had 23 saves for North Dakota, as the Sioux skaters outshot the Huskies 30-26. On the power play, SCSU was 0-for-7 and UND was 0-for-3.
“If the game is tight in the third period, in this league, anything can happen,” Motzko said.
SCSU’s first line of Billy Hengen, Joe Jensen and Andrew Gordon had accounted for 32 of SCSU’s 62 points this season going into tonight’s game. In the 3-2 win over North Dakota, SCSU received all of its points from its second, third and fourth lines.
“We’ve really been playing some pretty good hockey this season, but we haven’t been getting the point production from our second, third and fourth lines,” Motzko said. “Tonight, we really got that point production help from those lines when we needed it. They (the second, third and fourth lines) stepped up for us tonight.”
The Huskies and UND will return to the ice at the National Hockey Center in St. Cloud for a 7:07 p.m. drop on Saturday.
