No. 19 Nebraska-Omaha outlasted visiting St. Cloud State in a post-Thanksgiving feast of goals on Saturday, besting the Huskies, 4-3, in front of 8,112 fans at CenturyLink Center.
UNO captain Terry Broadhurst scored twice for the Mavericks, with his second goal coming with 2:18 left to play in the game, standing up as the Mavericks’ game-winner.
Saturday’s tilt was very much a back-and-forth affair up until then. Both teams controlled large patches of the game, and UNO needed every one of its four goals in order to come away with the two WCHA points on offer.
After a very free-flowing start to Saturday’s game, SCSU forward Cory Thorson put the visitors ahead at 12:44 of the first period. UNO goaltender Ryan Massa was led out of position, and Thorson was left with time to whack home a loose puck lying in the crease.
Just over six minutes into the second period however, UNO drew level on a fluky goal. Mavericks forward Jayson Megna took a speculative shot from just ahead of the Huskies’ goal line that went in off SCSU goaltender Ryan Faragher’s pad at the far side of the crease. Faragher was frozen in place upright by the shot, perhaps having expected Megna to send a pass behind the net.
UNO then took its first lead of the night at 12:28 of the same period on another goal Faragher will definitely want back. Mavericks captain Terry Broadhurst didn’t get a whole lot of wood on his first goal, a shot from low in the slot, but he got enough to get the puck beyond the SCSU goalie and just over the visitors’ goal line.
Less than a minute after Broadhurst’s goal though, SCSU was back on terms. Huskies captain Ben Hanoswki tied the game with a candidate for the WCHA’s goal of the year, going on something of a slalom run and beating three UNO skaters before wristing the puck glove-side past Massa.
Parity didn’t last long, however. Just 2:27 after Hanowski’s goals, UNO forward Alex Hudson put the Mavericks back in the lead with a bomb from the right circle that beat Faragher high glove at the near post.
Saturday’s third period kept up the night’s theme of weird goals going in. At 5:42 of the frame, SCSU forward Cam Reid opted for a cheeky lob shot from the top of the slot that hit Massa’s right pad and bounced into the net.
The game stayed tied for another 12 minutes exactly before UNO went ahead for good. Broadhurst’s second goal of the night did the trick, with the Mavericks captain taking a Hudson pass from across the SCSU goalmouth before beating Faragher low.
“Terry’s going to find a way to get the puck with the speed he has,” UNO coach Dean Blais said after the game about his captain. “He’s going to anticipate, and he’s smart, and even on that fourth goal, I’m sure he was yelling to ‘Huddy’ for that puck, because it was almost like a blind pass to him (before Broadhurst scored).
“That’s what we talked about: Communication in the offensive zone and really all over the ice, and Terry’s obviously our captain and our leader and he’s a guy that leads by example.”
SCSU coach Bob Motzko came away frustrated after Saturday’s game, feeling that, up until Broadhurst put UNO ahead for good, the Huskies had done enough to win the game themselves.
“We’re not really happy with the loss, because we thought we deserved a better fate,” Motzko said. “Our kids played very hard, and we would’ve liked a couple more saves there and a couple of bad goals got by us, but we battled so hard in the third period, and then we just made a costly mistake.
“We turned the puck over twice, and against the wrong line, and when you do that, (that line is) going to bury it. On that play, their will was better than our will to win the game.”
The Huskies (6-7-2, 4-4-1 WCHA) will have a chance to salvage a series split with UNO (7-6-2, 6-3-2) though, when the two teams meet again Sunday afternoon in Omaha.
