{"id":92443,"date":"2019-03-23T23:44:44","date_gmt":"2019-03-24T04:44:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/?p=92443"},"modified":"2020-08-24T12:11:59","modified_gmt":"2020-08-24T17:11:59","slug":"rivera-completes-comeback-in-ot-lifts-minnesota-state-to-wcha-championship-with-win-over-bowling-green","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/2019\/03\/23\/rivera-completes-comeback-in-ot-lifts-minnesota-state-to-wcha-championship-with-win-over-bowling-green\/","title":{"rendered":"Rivera completes comeback in OT, lifts Minnesota State to WCHA championship with win over Bowling Green"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"<\/a>
Minnesota State erased a 2-0 deficit and downed Bowling Green 3-2 Saturday night in the WCHA title game (photo: Tim Brule).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANKATO, Minn.<\/b> — Luckily for Minnesota State, regulation time for a hockey game is still 60 minutes.<\/p>\n

For 58 minutes of Saturday\u2019s WCHA championship, Bowling Green was the better team on the ice, but it was the Mavericks that walked away with a 3-2 overtime victory and the Jeff Sauer Trophy.<\/p>\n

Nick Rivera scored the game-winning goal at the 1:37 mark of overtime. The junior was sitting back door and had a deflected puck land in a perfect location.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you see a puck and you see an opportunity, grade-A, in front of the net in the slot area, you just want to get it off as much as you can,\u201d Rivera said after the game.<\/p>\n

What a difference 201 seconds can make.<\/p>\n

With less than two minutes remaining in the third, goaltender Dryden McKay on the bench in favor of an extra attacker and the Falcons trying to coax a 2-0 lead across the finish line, sophomore forward Jake Jaremko cut the lead in half. Late in the third period, it was the first time the sold-out crowd of more than 5,300 at Verizon Center had a goal to cheer about.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen Jake ends up staying with that puck and getting it to 2-1, the crowd gets into it,\u201d Minnesota State head coach Mike Hastings said. \u201cOur guys have done a good job playing with poise this year when we\u2019ve gone six-on-five and we then we found a way to get the puck back in the zone and find a way to get it tied. From that point on, I felt good, momentum is a tough thing to get and you want to hold onto it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Merely 48 seconds later Connor Mackey made anyone that decided to try and beat the traffic gravely regret their decision, tying the game and sending it to overtime.<\/p>\n

A big reason the Mavericks were able to tie the game late in the third was because of a penalty kill early in the period. Edwin Hookenson took a major for checking from behind at the 1:20 mark of the third. Alec Rauhauser proceeded to give Bowling Green a 2-0 lead roughly eight seconds into the power play, but Minnesota State held strong the rest of the way.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur leadership group just did a good job of saying, \u2018Hey, there\u2019s a lot of meat still left on that bone,\u2019 as far as trying to kill the rest of that penalty kill,\u201d Hastings said. \u201cI think that\u2019s the turning point in the game, they don\u2019t get to three, which allows us to get to a one-goal game and then to tie it.\u201d<\/p>\n

There were 201 seconds of game time from trailing late with the goaltender pulled to celebrating with a trophy at center ice, but the 3-2 score line doesn\u2019t give Bowling Green enough credit.<\/p>\n

The Falcons had the Mavericks on the ropes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were taking away time and space,\u201d Bowling Green coach Chris Bergeron said. \u201cWe were playing hard, which is who we are when we\u2019re at our best. When we\u2019re playing good hockey, we\u2019re defending and taking away time and space for our opponent. I thought we did that through 58 minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Falcons went into the game knowing that a win would give them the automatic bid into the NCAA tournament. However, thanks to Northeastern taking down Boston College in the Hockey East championship game, Bowling Green punched its ticket to its first tournament since 1990 as the teams were stepping onto the ice for the third period in Mankato.<\/p>\n

Even so, nobody was too keen to talk about the berth on Saturday.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s tough, because we\u2019ve got to turn the page,\u201d BGSU junior Frederic LeTourneau said. \u201cWe just lost an opportunity to win something, and it\u2019s always really sad and we\u2019ll for sure be thinking about that for the next couple days, but there\u2019s another championship at stake and I think we\u2019ve just got to move on. That\u2019s our next goal, winning the next game, and then if we keep winning, there\u2019s a championship we can go get.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hastings was complimentary of the way Bowling Green and said they\u2019d be a tough out in the tournament.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were playing hard, and physical and defending inside dots,\u201d he said. \u201cI thought both teams did, tonight was a very difficult game. I want to give them credit, they\u2019re a very difficult team to play against. Whoever gets them in the tournament, as Chris [Bergeron] has said, they\u2019re a handful and tonight, they were a handful.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Luckily for Minnesota State, regulation time for a hockey game is still 60 minutes (photo: Tim Brule).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":94,"featured_media":92445,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[949],"tags":[948,812],"coauthors":[855],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nRivera completes comeback in OT, lifts Minnesota State to WCHA championship with win over Bowling Green - College Hockey | USCHO.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Luckily for Minnesota State, regulation time for a hockey game is still 60 minutes (photo: Tim Brule).\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92443\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Rivera completes comeback in OT, lifts Minnesota State to WCHA championship with win over Bowling Green - 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