Bowling Green State University
Lake Superior State
Falcons On To Second Round After, 4-3, Overtime Win Over Lake Superior State
March 10, 2008 | Ice Hockey
March 9, 2008
BOWLING GREEN, Ohio - Freshman forward Jacob Cepis' goal at 1:34 of overtime sent the Bowling Green State University hockey team to the second round of the Central Collegiate Hockey Association for the first time since 2001 on Sunday night as they defeated Lake Superior State, 4-3, in the decisive game three of their opening round series. The Sunday night contest was held inside the BGSU Ice Arena.
The victory moved the Falcons to 18-19-0 on the year, while the Lakers finished their season 10-20-7. The 18 wins for the Falcons are the most they've had in a single-season in the past decade and the most since they won 26 games during the 1995-96 campaign. The victory also guaranteed BG their first trip to the second round of the CCHA playoffs for the first time since 2001 when they swept Miami in the opening round, before going on to beat Northern Michigan in the Play-In game, which is now the second round best-of-three format.
The seventh-seeded Falcons will now play the second-seeded Miami RedHawks in another best-of-three series starting Friday in Oxford, Ohio.
It was a missle by Cepis into the high blocker side of the net from near the top of the left-wing circle that earned the Falcons that second round trip. The goal was the lone shot of the extra 20-minute period as Kevin Schmidt picked up the lone assist on the play.
"I just got on the ice and Schmidty [Kevin Schmidt] gave me a nice pass that caught me in stride after I circled coming off the bench," said Cepis of his overtime-winner. "Their defenseman gave me a lot of room and I just saw the goalie cheating towards the low side and I shot it as hard as I could. I just wanted to put it high and hard."
"It was a great finish to this type of series and just a great win and moment for this program," said BG coach Scott Paluch of the overtime goal. "I'm proud of the way our team came back tonight and we took advantage of an opportunity we wouldn't have had years and years ago when these were total goals series. We woke up and the sun was shining and we still had the opportunity to come here and play hockey and we earned that chance to move on tonight. To get 52 shots on a great defensive team like this isn't easy and Pat Inglis [Lake Superior State goaltenderd] did a great job tonight of keeping most of those out. I never did see that puck leave Jacob's [Cepis] stick. It was just an absolute rocket right to the area it needed to be placed."
Cepis' game-winning goal came after BG came back from a 3-1 second period deficit as a power-play in the second period and a goal with just three minutes to play by sophomore forward Todd McIlrath sent the game to its' extra frame.
LSSU built that lead with two second period goals just 2:30 apart as the game was tied at 1-1 after the first intermission.
It didn't take long for LSSU to get on the board in the first as Will Acton got the game's scoring started just 1:05 in on a rebound goal to the left side of the net. Simon Gysbers and Matt Cowie added the two helpers as the Lakers looked like they might pick up right where they left off the night before.
However, the Falcons struck back at the 6:03 mark with the man-advantage as Tomas Petruska tallied his fifth goal of the season. David Solway and James Perkin picked up the assists as Petruska found the net from the left side of the crease to tie the game up at 1-1. BG finished the first period with 16 shots on net, while the LSSU fired 12 at Falcon goaltender Jimmy Spratt.
Despite getting shot after shot on Laker goalie Pat Inglis, the Falcons found themselves trailing 3-1 at the 8:45 mark of the second period. Laker forward Troy Schwab picked up a power-play goal at 6:15, while teammate Nathan Perkovich followed just two and a half minutes later to give LSSU a two-goal cushion.
That two-goal lead would get trimmed to one though at the 12:02 mark of the second period when Derek Whitmore picked up his 27th goal of the year and 13 on the power play to bring the game to 3-2. Dan Sexton and Cepis recorded two assists on Whitmore's 70th career goal.
The Falcons fired 17 second period shots for a 40-minute total of 32. BG would add 19 more shots to that total in the third as they kept digging and digging to get the tying goal.
Finally at the 17:00 mark Schmidt found Tommy Dee, who found McIlrath for that game-tying marker. The Northville, Mich. native found the high side of the net on the left side of Inglis for his fourth goal of the season and fourth in the last seven games. Dee picked up his third assist with the helper, while Schmidt picked up his 20th and first of the evening.
Schmidt would finish tied with Cepis for a team-high two points with two assists on the night with his other on the game-winner in overtime.
Cepis finished with a goal and an assist as he earned the game's first-star honors.
Three players finished with two points for LSSU as Inglis made 49 saves on s new season-high 53 total BG shots. Spratt would stop 29 of 32 Laker shots between the Falcon pipes as he earned his first career playoff victory.
Both squads finished the evening 2-for-7 with the extra-man.
The Falcons will return to action Friday for game one of their second round CCHA series at Miami. All the action from MU's Steve Cady Arena can be heard by tuning into WBGU 88.1 FM as Danny Nieves and Bob Mills will bring you all the play-by-play.
