A little desperation and a clutch goal by a freshman gave Minnesota State its first WCHA win of the season.<\/p>\n
Dylan Morgonari scored with 3:21 remaining in the game to lift Minnesota State over second-ranked Minnesota 5-3 Saturday at the Verizon Wireless Center.<\/p>\n
The freshman from Greensburg, Pa., hopped over the boards and immediately found an opening in the middle of the ice took a pass from Max Gaede at the right circle.<\/p>\n
“[Bryce] Gervais dumped the puck in and went off for a change,” Morgonari said. “I was coming down the slot and Gaede put the puck on my tape and I was just able to beat the goalie.”<\/p>\n
Morgonari ripped a wrist shot past Gophers’ goaltender Adam Wilcox for his second goal of the season.<\/p>\n
“Margonari came off the bench and he didn’t make a mistake,” said MSU coach Mike Hastings. “He’s a good hockey player. We’re lucky to have him.”<\/p>\n
After three straight losses to open the WCHA schedule, including a 3-2 loss to Minnesota Friday, the Mavericks needed a boost immediately Saturday night.<\/p>\n
MSU applied heavy pressure from the puck drop, getting 11 shots on goal by the midway point of the first period. The Mavericks also had a 2-0 lead by that point.<\/p>\n
“We knew we needed a win,” Morgonari said. “We got one tonight and I think the sky’s the limit for this team.”<\/p>\n
Josh Nelson put MSU on the board with a wrist shot from the blue line that floated through traffic and got past Wilcox at the 6:20 mark of the first period.<\/p>\n
Zach Lehrke scored 3:34 later to give MSU a 2-0 lead. Lehrke slipped past Nick Bjugstad and took a pass from Margonari as he broke down the slot and shot it past Wilcox glove side.<\/p>\n
The Gophers tied the game on a goal by Christian Isackson with 3:40 left in the period and wasted no time knotting game 56 seconds into the second period.<\/p>\n
Bjugstad finished off a nice tic-tac-toe passing sequence from Nate Schmidt and Erik Haula to make it 2-2.<\/p>\n
MSU’s Johnny McInnis and Nate Condon traded goals 26 seconds apart just after the 12-minute mark of the second period.<\/p>\n
Then came what Hastings called the game’s turning point, a remarkable toe save by Phil Cook with 12 seconds before the second intermission to keep the game tied at three.<\/p>\n
Cook stuck out his right skate in desperation mode to stop Haula on a cross from Condon.<\/p>\n
“I told [Cook] in the locker room after that save that he was going to give us a chance to win,” Hastings said.<\/p>\n
Four minutes into the third period, Cook lifted his left shoulder high enough to knock down a shot by Zach Budish.<\/p>\n
Cook finished with 25 saves. Wilcox finished with 30.<\/p>\n
“The best, most consistent and probably the most desperate team won tonight,” said Minnesota coach Don Lucia. “[Minnesota State] had a good start and I think that was the difference in the game.”<\/p>\n
J.P. Lafontaine added an empty-net goal with 11 seconds left.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A little desperation and a clutch goal by a freshman gave Minnesota State its first WCHA win of the season. Dylan Morgonari scored with 3:21 remaining in the game to lift Minnesota State over second-ranked Minnesota 5-3 Saturday at the Verizon Wireless Center. The freshman from Greensburg, Pa., hopped over the boards and immediately found […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":22374,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15871"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15871"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15871\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15886,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15871\/revisions\/15886"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15871"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=15871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}