MINNEAPOLIS – The Norwich men's ice hockey team's quest for a national championship repeat ended on Friday night with a 3-2 loss to St. Norbert at the University of Minnesota's Ridder Arena.
In a rematch of last year's national championship game, the Green Knights prevailed to avenge last year's 2-1 double overtime loss to Norwich at the Herb Brooks Arena in Lake Placid, N.Y.
After Pier-Olivier Cotnoir scored to tie the game at two at the 11:14 mark of the third period, St. Norbert's Scott Pulak scored what proved to be the game-winning goal just 1:13 later off assists from Johan Ryd and Brandon Longley.
Ryd set the play up by wheeling around a Norwich player and then sent a centering feed that Pulak tipped between NU goaltender Parker Carroll's pads to give the Green Knights the lead for good after Norwich had rallied from a two goal deficit to tie the game.
Neither team scored during the first 40 minutes of play. Norwich was held off the board by St. Norbert senior goalie B.J. O'Brien's 26 saves to keep the game scoreless despite the Cadets outshooting the Green Knights by a count of 26-9.
St. Norbert's Cody Keefer opened the scoring just 1:30 into the third period with an unassisted goal. Keefer threw a shot at the net through traffic that found its way past Carroll and into the back of the net give the Green Knights a 1-0 lead with their first shot of the period.
Seth Soley increased the lead to 2-0 when he beat Carroll over the blocker after Brandon Hoogenboon won the faceoff to his right where Soley was positioned.
NU responded 2:19 later when Travis Janke finally got the Cadets on the board with his 12th goal of the season off assists from Cotnoir and Baker. Baker took an initial shot from the blue line that was blocked by a St. Norbert defender. Cotnoir slapped another shot that O'Brien turned aside, but Janke was right on the doorstep to gather in the loose rebound and flip the puck top shelf to the far post on the back hand to beat a sprawled out O'Brien.
Cotnoir tied the game at the 11:14 mark when he stepped around a St. Norbert defenseman in the slot and tipped a centering feed from behind the end line from Greg Eskedjian to knot the game at two.
However, the tie was short lived as St. Norbert responded just 1:13 later with Pulak's goal to put the Cadets right back down.
Norwich had a chance to jump on top a little under two minutes into the first period when Zac Fulton took a shot from the left point through traffic that was redirected by traffic in front of the net and just sailed wide and over the shoulder of O'Brien.
St. Norbert made it a point in the first period to try and set the tone early by playing physical and hit Norwich players every time they touched the puck.
The Green Knights also did a tremendous job keeping Norwich out of the slot area and funnel the Cadets' scoring chances to the outside.
The second period opened up and Norwich took complete control of the game, outshooting the Green Knights 17-3.
After making 70 saves in the national championship game one year ago, O'Brien once again was a thorn in the Cadets' side, stopping 39 shots to propel the Green Knights back into the national championship game where they will go for their second title against Adrian College, who defeated Oswego 5-3 in the other semifinal on Friday night.
Adrian is making its first appearance in the title game in just the program's fourth season. St. Norbert won its first and only title in 2008 by defeating SUNY Plattsburgh 2-0.
Carroll made 15 saves for Norwich and was saddled with the first loss of his career and snapped his 16-game unbeaten streak to finish the season 14-1-2. O'Brien improved to 15-1-1.
Norwich was 0-for-4 on the power play and St. Norbert was 0-for-1.
St. Norbert improved to 24-4-1, while Norwich finishes the season 22-6-3 and had its 14-game unbeaten streak snapped. Before Friday night's loss, Norwich hadn't lost since Jan. 21 in a 5-2 defeat at the hands of Wesleyan.
