Northern Michigan 7, Denver 3 This was a rather strange game. From the perspective of Wildcat fans inattendance Saturday evening at Lakeview Arena, the mood went from eager anticipation to impatience, to gloom, to excitement, to final, gleeful celebration. The Wildcats' successful tactic of the previous evening had involved assigning Bill MacGilivray to shadow league scoring leader Angelo Ricci of the Pioneers. On the very first shift Denver got control of the puck after a brief NMU rush off the opening faceoff and moved into the Wildcat zone. Ricci shot down the left side ahead of MacGilivray, who grabbed at him and brought him down. Fifteen seconds into the game we had an interference penalty as a result, and a Pioneer power play. Twenty-two seconds later it was 1-0 Denver, and Ricci--naturally--was the scorer. Less than five minutes later the Pioneers scored on another power play for a 2-0 lead. The Wildcats provided some spark to the crowd shortly thereafter by getting on the board with a Mike Harding goal on yes, another power play--this one a 5-on-3 situation which NMU capitalized on within seconds of the second penalty. The first period ended 2-1, Denver. Actually, it felt like the 'Cats had dominated the period after the early powe plays; most of the play was in the Denver end. But the Wildcats exhibited terrrible shooting skills and despite numerous excellent opportunities put very few shots on the goal. This was significant, since both Rick Comley in his postgame radio interview, and Dave Siyak(?), the former NMU player doing the color commentary on the tape-delay TV broadcast noted that the Pioneers' freshman goalie Chris Burns looked vulnerable. Burns went down on almost every shot and gave up quite a few rebounds. Early in the second period the Pioneers took a 3-1 lead. This one made Wildcat goalie Corwin Saurdiff look rather bad. While the first two Denver goals involved rebounds and scrambles around the net during power plays, the third one was put in by Denver's McLean past Saurdiff's right shoulder, and he didn't seem to either be able to react to it, or else see it. (Although the TV replay didn't indicate any way in which he might have been screened.) About halfway through the second period, however, the Wildcats completely took over the game. The results of their efforts were frustrated at first, as despite beginning to pepper Burns and the goal area in general, they were credited with no goals for a long time. I put it that way because two NMU goals were disallowed by the official, who had prematurely blown his whistle. Finally, at 16:41 Jason Hehr capped off a 3-on-2 breakout with Greg Hadden and Harding by faking Burns and putting in a nice waist-high shot. The real turning point came at the very end of the period. The 'Cats were on a power play and set up one last time with five seconds left; Hehr got th puck to Hadden down low on the goalie's left, and Greg carefully slid it to Brent Riplinger right in front just in time for Brent to slip it under Burns as time expired. The goal was officially scored as occurring at 20:00, and tied the score at 3-3. Needless to sa say, that brought the crowd to its feet in a roaring ovation as the teams left the ice. Comley was to say after the game, "That was a very emotional goal. It gave our team a lot of momentum. It was almost like an overtime goal." The third period was the best, by far, Wildcat fans have seen in Marquette this year from their team, and Comley said in the postgame interview it was their best of the season. The offensive pressure NMU put on Denver was almost unbelievably intense. Even short-handed situations looked like Wildcat power plays. The go-ahead goal was scored by Harding early in the period, and three more followed. Given my recent remarks about cheap assists, I need to say about this goal that the goalie Saurdiff was given an assist on this one, it was richly deserved. Denver had sent a clearing pass down the ice, and anticipating an icing call went into a rather leisurely line change. Saurdiff alertly stopped the puck before it could cross the goal line and passed it half the length of the rink to Harding who thus was able to break in on Burns without interference from most of the Pioneers. Dan Ruoho made it 5-3 with a great individual effort at 5:38 as he got control of the puck behind the Denver goal line, kept it while fighting off several Pioneers as he skated behind the net, then stretched out and stuffed a wraparound shot past Burns as he (Ruoho) was being knocked down. Geoff Simpson and MacGillivray scored the last two goals. There were several other excellent scoring opportunities as well; Burns did make a large number of saves, and some shots went wide or high. In this game the Wildcats shifted from assigning MacGillivray as Ricci's constant shadow to making it whatever center was on the ice at the same time as Angelo. Ricci had more freedom of movement and got off more shots, but following the initial goal which he scored and assisting on the second Denver power play, he was not involved in any more scoring. The result of the weekend sweep of Denver was Norhtern's record improving to .500 in the WCHA, at 5-5-2. They gained four points on previously tied for the lead Denver over the weekend, and four on idle Minnesota. At this writing I don't know the result of the Saturday Wisconsin-North Dakota game, but the Fighting Sioux Friday victory over the Badgers means the 'Cats gained at least two points on them as well. The WCHA standings are going to look tighter on Monday. The four-game winning streak gives NMU some great momentum. However, they now go back on the road for four straight league games in Fargo and Duluth. Those will be real tests. The good news is that Rick Comley says Joe Frederick will probably play at Duluth. The month ends for NMU with participation in the Great Lakes Invitational, which we're looking forward to watching on PASS. Summary: First period 1. DU, Ricci (12) (Kenady, Koch) ppg, 0:37 2. DU, Konawalchuk (5) (McMillan, Ricci) ppg, 6:11 3. NMU, Harding (4) (Hehr, Carpenter) ppg, 7:23 Second period 4. DU, McLean (2) (DeCorby, O'Leary) 5. NMU, Hehr (2) (Hadden, Harding), 16:41 6. NMU, Riplinger (5) (Harding, Hehr), ppg, 20:00 Third period 7. NMU, Harding (5) (Carpenter, Saurdiff) 8. NMU, Ruoho (5) (unassisted), 5:38 9. NMU, Simpson (3) (unassisted) 10. NMU, MacGillivray (2) (Ganz, Simpson), 15:44 Power play opportunities: NMU 6, Du 5 Penalties: NMU 6, DU 7 Goalie saves: NMU, 22 (Saurdiff, 10-6-6); DU 34 (Burns, 6-13-15) And the volleyball team won to advance to the Division II Final Four in Portland as well! Go 'Cats!!! *********************************** * Steve Christopher, NMU * * More than Division I Hockey - * First NCAA II Team to Ever Have Four * * FIRST TEAM Volleyball All-Americans!* * [log in to unmask] * ***********************************