The home team's attempted shot total is 72, the visitors' only 27. Shots on goal show the home guys with 37 and the guests with 13. A ho-hum laugher, right? WRONG! The Northern Michigan University Wildcats and their fans had to be thinking that the 'Cats' amazing home success at Lakeview Arena was going to suffer a rare blemish Friday night when visiting University of Minnesota-Duluth took an early 3-0 lead and held it until the final minute of the second period. The Bulldogs still held the 3-1 lead with the final period more than half over. Then a quiet Lakeview Arena went from wakefulness to exuberance to roaring ecstasy as the Wildcats scored three goals in the space of a minute and thirty-five seconds and went from a 3-1 deficit to a 4-3 advantage at the 14:40 mark. This score should probably be presented as "Northern Michigan 4, Taras Lendzyk 3." The UMD goaltender was unbelievable, making many saves on shots from point-blank range. It was hard to believe the score was 3-0 UMD at the end of the first period, with the saves being annonced as 6 for NMU's Paul Taylor and 16 for Lendzyk. The UMD goalie continued his heroics in the second period, stopping 9 more Wildcat shots while Taylor only had to deal with 5 from the Bulldogs. Northern's attack was really excellent, but Lendzyk just stopped everything until Steve Carpenter took a shot from the left wing faceoff circle at 19:12 and it deflected off Kory Karlander's skate into the goal. That probably gave the Wildcats a much-needed lift to take into the locker room and then back out onto the ice for the final period. Although the Bulldogs' attack was virtually nonexistent in comparison to the Cats', UMD got three outstanding chances at Taylor in the first period and made good on all of them. At 6:32 Joe Ciccarello slipped behind the NMU defense and took a perfect pass from Hanson right in front of Taylor; he slipped the puck past Paul's stick into the right corner of the net. Less than four minutes later UMD's "big" line of Chris Marinucci, Rusty Fitzgerald and Federenko got its first of two sco scores. Federenko was wiped out on a huge check at midice, but got the puck ahead to Miller, who slipped it to Marinucci walking in alone on Taylor. He scored without great difficulty through the goalie's legs to make it 2-0 at 10:07. Then at 17:24 UMD made it 3-0 when Fitzgerald took a good pass from Marinucci and again got in alone one Taylor and beat him for the final Bulldog score. Between the usual Thanksgiving attrition in the crowd (although there were more there than many expected; I'd say that of a paid crowd of 4,100+ there may have been about 3,500 present), the lack of the Northern Sound Machine band (although the Gwinn High School Jazz Band did a good job), and the early UMD lead, it was REAL quiet in Lakeview until the third period, and things didn't start to approach seminormal decibel levels until Brent Riplinger got the third period explosion started at 13:05. The Wildcats had failed to capitalize on a series of power play opportunities, including a 47-second 5-on-3, at the end of the second period and the beginning of the third. (Karlander's deflection of Carpenter's shot for the first NMU goal occurred in a brief interval between power plays.) They then withstood nearly four minutes of UMD advantages midway through the first half of the third period. Finally, during a sustained attack on the Bulldog net Greg Hadden took the puck behind the UMD net and passed it out to Riplinger in the slot. Brent lifted a nice wrist shot over Lendzyk to make it 3-2. Just 28 playing seconds later in a similar situation Darcy Dallas and Hadden combined to get the puck to Carpenter in a scrum out front and Steve's quick shot lined past Lendzyk at waist level to tie the game at 13:33. Freshman Dean Seymour capped the rally with his sixth goal of the season when he got the puck in yet another scrimmage out front, missed on his first attempt, spun around and fired again and got the low shot past Lendzyk. At this point Bulldog coach Frank Sertich called a time out, and you can imagine the sound level in the building. The Bulldogs pulled Lendzyk for the final minute and had three faceoffs in the Wildcat end, but Cats won all three faceoffs and Taylor was not seriously tested during the six-man attack. Wheweee! That was FUN!! And, a heartbreaking loss for the Bulldog fans, of course. A whole chartered busload of them have come to Marquette for the weekend. You could tell from Rick Comley's postgame radio interview comments that he was very pleased with his team's efforts. It also sounded like he was begining to think the 'Cats might not ever solve Lendzyk, and was extremely happy that they did. (Gee, what a surprise, right?!) ;-) Can I take credit for the Wildcat win? As the third period was about to begin I thought "I haven't had much of a look at any of the goals so far." (My seats are in the end that NMU attacks in the first and third periods.) "I want to see three goals this period, all right down here in front of me!" Not bad, huh? :-) It was really great to see nearly the entire Wildcat team healthy and playing for the first time. Bryan Ganz, Riplinger, Carpenter, Chad Damewoth are all back and in the thick of things. Only Steve Hamilton, whose preseason injury has kept him out of everything still remains on the sidelines. Rematch at 7:00 EST tonight. Power play opportunities: UMD 0/2; NMU 0/4 Penalties: UMD 6/20; NMU 3/6 Goalie saves: UMD, 33 (Lendzyk, 16-9-8); NMU, 10 (Taylor, 3-5-2) Attendance: 4,109 ********************************************************************** * Steve Christopher, NMU [log in to unmask] - GO CATS! * * * * * * NCAA Division I Hockey National Champions 1990-91 * "WE'VE * * * NCAA Division I Hockey Final Eight 1991-92 * ONLY * * * NCAA Division I Hockey Final Eight 1992-93 * JUST * * * WCHA League Champions 1990-91 * BEGUN"* * * WCHA Playoff Champions 1988-89/1990-91/1991-92 * * * * * **********************************************************************