Sixty minutes wasn’t enough.
Neither was 80.
And it was almost 100 minutes gone by before Kevin Bui scored with 5:52 left in the second overtime to send Quinnipiac to the ECAC semifinals with a 3-2 win over Cornell Sunday night.
“That was a great college hockey game,” Quinnipiac coach Rand Pecknold said, smiling. “It was extremely exciting with lots of chances and some good drama.”
Drama was the key word Sunday as the Bobcats trailed by one goal late in the third period. With just over a minute to play in regulation and with Eric Hartzell pulled from the Bobcats’ net, Jeremy Langlois took a feed from Jordan Samuels-Thomas and muscled toward the net. Clay Harvey raced to the crease and willed the puck under Cornell goalie Andy Iles to tie the game at 2-2.
“Harvey just did a phenomenal job getting the puck to the net and banging away to give us a chance to fight another day in overtime,” Bui said.
The Bobcats continued its pressure in the first overtime posting 15 shots on net. In all, Iles made 60 saves in more than 90 minutes of time.
Neither team seemed to run out of gas at any point of the extra frames with play flying back and forth.
Finally, Bui propelled his team to the next round.
Loren Barron connected with Bui as he crossed over the blue line. Bui raced behind the Cornell defense and streaked toward the net. Bui put the puck on his backhanded and tossed it under Iles for the game-winner.
“I was just trying to get up ice and had a lot of speed going wide and Loren hit me with a nice pass and I had their defensemen beat,” Bui said. “The next thing I know, everyone was on top of me.”
The goal was Bui’s second of the season and just his fifth career goal in 63 games.
“That’s that fastest I’ve ever seen him skate,” a chuckling Pecknold said. “He was motoring and that is credit to him and our strength coach. He was flying; I’m real happy for Kevin. He is such a good kid and he’s been such a big part of our success this year.”
Bui’s goal sends Quinnipiac to the next round, while Cornell’s season ends.
“We weren’t happy with some of the things from last night and we wanted to respond accordingly today with focused play and none of those guys should have any regrets with the way we played,” Cornell coach Mike Schafer said.
There was no short of fight in the Big Red’s game tonight with some inspired play after getting outscored 10-0 last night.
Schafer added that Iles was a game-time decision this weekend after injuring himself last weekend against Princeton. In addition, Nick D’Agostino played tonight with a broken hand after blocking a shot last night.
Quinnipiac has dominated the ECAC all season, but the only team that Quinnipiac hasn’t beaten is Brown after tying the Bears twice earlier this year. The two will meet in the semifinals next weekend.
