Hockey Point in Time: The First WCHA Sweep in BGSU History vs. North Dakota

The Bowling Green State University Athletics Department is celebrating 50 years of the BGSU Ice Arena this season, culminating on Feb. 11, 2017 to honor the 50th anniversary of the arena's grand opening on Feb. 25, 1967. The Falcons will host Mercyhurst on that date, in what will be the team's final non-conference game of the 2016-17 season.

Leading up to the anniversary, BGSU Athletics is taking a look back at some of the great moments in BGSU Ice Arena history. For the first edition of this series, we look back at the Falcons' first-ever sweep of a WCHA team when they took down North Dakota on Dec. 7-8, 1990.

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The Bowling Green Falcons celebrated the silver anniversary of the BGSU Ice Arena during the 1990-91 season, and Jerry York's squad helped celebrate by rising to an early-season top-ten ranking.

The apex of the season occurred on the weekend of Dec. 7-8, 1990, when the Falcons hosted the North Dakota Fighting Sioux. BGSU had never defeated UND in four previous opportunities, but the team erupted for 11 goals and earned their first-ever sweep of a WCHA team. The sweep improved Bowling Green's record to 11-5-2, and the team rose to eighth in the national rankings.

In the first game, BGSU led the seventh-ranked Sioux 3-1 midway through the second after a pair of goals from Dan Bylsma and a score from Peter Holmes. However, UND exploded for four unanswered goals over an eight-minute span to take a 5-3 lead with 2:15 left in the period.

Brett Harkins slid home a puck to pull Bowling Green within one before the end of the second, then Holmes scored again to tie the game in the third. With less than two minutes to go in regulation, freshman Sean Pronger found a loose puck in front of the net and slid it past goaltender Tony Couture to give the Falcons the lead.

Holmes finished the scoring and earned a hat trick with an empty net goal as the Falcons won, 7-5.

On Saturday, the Falcons employed a defense that included four freshmen and two sophomores, but the youthful team still held the powerful North Dakota offense to three goals.

Martin Jiranek opened the scoring for Bowling Green in the first period, and following a UND goal, Holmes sent home a power play score for his fourth goal of the weekend. That gave BGSU a 2-1 lead heading into the second period. The teams exchanged goals from there, until the contest went to overtime knotted 3-3.

BGSU's defense enabled the Falcons to win in the extra frame. Sophomore Ken Klee created a turnover on the Falcons' end of the ice and sent a pass to Matt Ruchty near the BGSU blue line. Ruchty raced down the left side and sent a hard shot off goalie Chris Dickson's right shoulder. The puck went into the net at the 2:07 mark, and Bowling Green had its sweep.

See the original article in BG News HERE.

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