All season long, Bemidji State has been playing opponents tough, and Friday night was no exception.
Once a tying goal was waved off, however, Bemidji State seemed to deflate, and St. Cloud State finished them off.
Tim Daly’s first goal of the season broke an early third period tie, and No. 16 St. Cloud added two more goals late to skate off with a 6-3 victory at the Sanford Center Friday night.
“They played a good game,” Huskies forward Jimmy Murray said of the Beavers. “They’re a tough competitor every time we play them. Props to them.”
Beavers coach Tom Serratore was indignant when asked about what his thoughts were about how his team played.
“It wasn’t a great performance at all; the better team won,” he said. “I thought we were flatfooted. I thought we let them dictate the play.”
Huskies coach Bob Motzko was pleased with his team’s response after a tough loss to North Dakota last Saturday night.
“I thought we did a lot of good things defensively,” he said. “We made some plays tonight.”
“We played our game in the third and luckily for us it worked out,” Murray added.
Bemidji State had the only goal of the first period, as Myles Fitzgerald scored his third of the year at 2:30. SCSU put on pressure late in the first and carried it over to the second, tying it at 1:46 in on a breakaway backhand goal by Murray.
“[Kalle Kossila] made a great play,” Murray said, as the turnover Kossila forced in the SCSU zone led to a great pass to Murray in the open ice. “Kind of read one of their D-men, intercepted it. I guess I just kind of went off to the races and there wasn’t anyone there.”
Motzko was happy to see Murray get a monkey off his back.
“Last two or three weeks, he’s been playing his best hockey,” he said of Murray, whose goal Friday was his first of the season. “It was going to come. It was bound to get through there. Now that he got it off, you’re gonna see him score more goals for us.”
BSU retook the lead on Nate Arentz’s sixth goal of the season 17 seconds after Murray’s tally to recharge the home crowd of 3,579. The Huskies managed their second equalizer at 6:46 when Andrew Prochno took advantage of a heavy screen in front of BSU goaltender Michael Bitzer and found the net from the left point, making it a 2-2 tie after two periods.
St. Cloud State finally took its first lead when Joey Benik softly tapped in a pass from Prochno nearly three minutes into the third period for his seventh goal of the season. Just like twice previously in the game, however, the team that gave up a goal responded.
Gerry Fitzgerald scored his first collegiate goal on a power play at 6:17 after Jonny Brodzinski was sent to the box for slashing.
Serratore thought his third line of the Fitzgeralds (Gerry and brothers Myles and Leo) stood out more than the rest of his team.
“They were a threat every time they were on the ice,” he said of the triplets, who accounted for half of BSU’s total points in the game. “They played with a lot of enthusiasm. They competed.”
Daly gave the Huskies the lead for good on his goal with just under 12 minutes remaining.
Phillip Marinaccio appeared to tie the game with just over 10 minutes remaining in the third, but the referees determined that he kicked the puck into the net and waved it off, much to the disappointment of the home crowd.
“Sometimes to win games you need those,” joked Beavers forward Graeme McCormack, who had two assists.
Brodzinski scored into an empty net from the left point with 29 seconds left, and Brooks Bertsch put the icing on the cake when he backhanded a rebound past Bitzer with 8 seconds left. A scrum ensued behind the Beavers net afterward, and Sam Rendle and Nick Oliver were tossed from the game.
“It was a game of mistakes for us,” said McCormack. “We were right with them for two periods and then it got away from us in the third.”
St. Cloud State improved to 6-6-1 with the victory and will attempt its first sweep of the season tomorrow night at 7:07 CST.
