MIDDLEBURY, Vt. – For the second straight season, the Norwich University men's ice hockey team fell victim to a shootout loss at the annual PrimeLink Great Northern ShootOut Tournament.

Norwich (7-0-1, 5-0-0 ECAC East) officially tied Concordia (Minn.) 2-2, but the Cobbers won the shootout 2-1 in five rounds to become the first non-hosting team to win the PrimeLink in its 17-year history.

Concordia (Minn.) freshman forward Jon Grebosky scored the eventual game winner in the shootout in the fifth round. Grebosky beat Norwich sophomore goalie Ty Reichenbach (Billings, Mont.) on the backhand top shelf and then NU sophomore defenseman Brian Rowland (Waltham, Mass.) was stoned by Alex Reichle to clinch the victory for the Cobbers.

Reichle made 26 saves for Concordia and was named the Most Valuable Player after also picking up the win in Friday's 4-3 win over Middlebury.

Norwich got goals from Trevor Stewart (Denver, Colo.) and Austin Surowiec (Louisville, Ky.) to take a 2-0 lead by the early stages of the second period. However, the Cadets were unable to hold the lead as Concordia got on the board at the 7:07 mark of the second with Jordie Bancroft's eighth goal of the season and third of the tournament. Jordan Krebsbach also tallied the game-tying goal at the 4:20 mark of the third period.

Playing in his first game of the season after missing the first seven due to an injury, Stewart made an instant impact, ripping a slap shot into the left side of the net for his first of the season at the 5:38 mark. Sophomore forward William Pelletier (St. Jean Chrysostome, Quebec) picked up the assist after feeding a perfect pass from the right corner boards to a waiting Stewart in the high slot.

Surowiec continued his recent hot streak, scoring his third goal of the PrimeLink with a top shelf blast off a rebound that squirted into the slot off an initial shot from Corey Hale (Montreal, Quebec). The goal was Surowiec's fifth of the season and came just 43 seconds into the second period.

Norwich outplayed Concordia for the first 10 minutes of the game, however slowly the Cobbers started to find their legs and get NU playing its game instead. Despite NU scoring early in the second, Concordia outshot Norwich 11-4 in the middle frame.

The Cobbers (5-3-2) got on the board when Bancroft wrapped a shot in after an initial shot by Krebsbach was blocked by traffic in front. Bancroft slid the puck along the ice into the bottom right corner of the net before Reichenbach could recover.

Krebsbach struck again at the 4:20 mark of the third period when he wristed a shot into the top left corner of the net from the blue line to knot the game at 2-2 while Concordia had an extra attacker on the ice after NU was whistled for a delayed penalty. Garrett Hendrickson and Andrew Deters picked up the assists on the goal.

Reichenbach made 24 saves for Norwich and is now 3-0-1 on the season. Reichle improved to 4-1-1 on the year.

Surowiec and Pelletier were named to the All-Tournament team for Norwich. Norwich will look to win its first PrimeLink ShootOut title since it hosted last in 2012 next year when the rotating tournament returns to Kreitzberg Arena. Norwich will face Connecticut College in the opening round while Plattsburgh will meet Middlebury in next year's tournament.

Norwich will look to keep its unbeaten streak to start the season going next weekend when it resumes ECAC East play with a road trip to Castleton and Skidmore on Friday and Saturday. Those two games will mark the end of the first semester of the season.

-CADETS-