{"id":171835856,"date":"2018-03-23T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-03-23T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/2018\/03\/23\/colby-vs-st-norbert-20180323\/"},"modified":"2018-03-23T23:26:47","modified_gmt":"2018-03-24T04:26:47","slug":"colby-vs-st-norbert-20180323","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/2018\/03\/23\/colby-vs-st-norbert-20180323\/","title":{"rendered":"Froese’s short-hander proves game-winner as St. Norbert holds off Colby, 4-3"},"content":{"rendered":"

LAKE PLACID, N.Y. — <\/strong>Short-handed goals are always huge. Perhaps none were larger for St. Norbert than Tanner Froese’s short-hander with 35.3 seconds left in the second period of the NCAA Division III semifinals.<\/p>\n

That short-handed goal stopped Colby’s comeback momentum in its tracks and proved to be the game-winner.<\/p>\n

The Green Knights defeated Colby, 4-3, thanks to three first-period goals and Froese’s timely tally.<\/p>\n

“We certainly had to earn all 60 minutes tonight,” St. Norbert coach Tim Coghlin said. “They’re a good team. They keep coming, they keep coming, they keep coming.”<\/p>\n

“To get behind 3-0 to a team like that, I was very proud of how we played for the next 40 minutes,” Colby coach Blaise MacDonald said. “The turning point is probably that short-handed goal at the end of the second.”<\/p>\n

“If that didn’t happen, they would have had a lot of momentum going into the third period,” Froese said. “That was not a situation we wanted to be in. I had a chance to make a big play, and lucky enough it went in for me.”<\/p>\n

“We had a clean entry into the zone,” MacDonald said. “Then we tried to make a flat pass through a lot of bodies and it hit their guy right in the stomach, which allowed them to transition. I thought we had a decent angle on him. He did a good job penetrating the dots and threw it [backhander] five-hole.”<\/p>\n

St. Norbert came out ready to play, scoring twice in the first 2:35.<\/p>\n

Roman Uchyn scored from the high slot at 1:18. Dominick Sacco scored from the left side on an almost impossible angle.<\/p>\n

Froese scored his first of the game at 11:33 on a niftier play than his short-hander. While falling to the ice, he swatted at the puck, which was enough to beat Sean Lawrence.<\/p>\n

“Obviously, it was a big goal,” Froese said. “Coaches stressed tracking pucks.”<\/p>\n

Colby mounted their comeback in the last five minutes of the second period, scoring twice within 2:52.<\/p>\n

J.P. Schuyler pounced on a fat rebound, one-timing it in from the slot. Cam MacDonald scored on a bad-angle shot of his own from the right side, beating T.J. Black.<\/p>\n

“Those are two goals in my mind that can’t happen,” Black said. “But at the end of the day, we are still up 3-2, and you have to lock it down from there. That’s my job. I wouldn’t want to be in any other spot than to lock down the game for our team.”<\/p>\n

Then came the fateful short-handed goal, a minute after the Mules went on a power play.<\/p>\n

Colby wasn’t ready to give up just yet. Justin Grillo scored at 14:08 of the third period on a slap shot as he crossed the blue line that deflected off a defender’s shin guard.<\/p>\n

Once again, it was a one-goal lead. Colby pulled their goalie and just missed on a dangerous deflection. With seconds left, MacDonald was nearly sprung on a breakaway, but the pass was just barely ahead of him to be able to get a handle on it.<\/p>\n

T.J. Black made 40 saves for his 26th win for the season, a St. Norbert record.<\/p>\n

“Our defense and forwards did a good job keeping their guys on the outside,” Black said. “And when I gave up some rebounds, our D-men cleared them out or our forwards backchecked hard.”<\/p>\n

“T.J. has been the backbone of this team for two-and-a-half years now,” Coghlin said. “He’s an All American back-to-back for a reason.”<\/p>\n

Colby, which has been on the road for the last six weeks, ends their season at 17-11-2.<\/p>\n

St. Norbert (26-4-1) is in their ninth national championship final, tying Middlebury’s record. They will attempt to win their fifth title tomorrow night against Salve Regina.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LAKE PLACID, N.Y. — Short-handed goals are always huge. Perhaps none were larger for St. Norbert than Tanner Froese’s short-hander with 35.3 seconds left in the second period of the NCAA Division III semifinals. That short-handed goal stopped Colby’s comeback momentum in its tracks and proved to be the game-winner. The Green Knights defeated Colby, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":22374,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[803,882],"coauthors":[392],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171835856"}],"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\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=171835856"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171835856\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":171835889,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171835856\/revisions\/171835889"}],"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=171835856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=171835856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=171835856"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=171835856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}