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St. Cloud State University
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Huskies spread out scoring in
By Bobby Hart
Published:
Monday, October 27, 2003
The pending question that haunted the Huskies as their key to the season was simple: who is going to score goals?
With two of the nations' leading scorers Chris Conner and Colin Murphy coming to the National Hockey Center over the weekend, SCSU knew they'd have to answer that question fast. They did so with an array of six different goal scorers. A total of 15 different Huskies pointed as they stole three out of four points from Michigan Tech with a 3-3 tie Friday, and a 6-5 win Saturday.
Of course, the series wouldn't be a typical Michigan Tech series without last minute drama. Tech played in their third straight overtime in Friday night's tie, and was able to do so thanks to Mr. Miracle himself, Colin Murphy, who snuck in the game-tying goal past a stickless Tim Boron with 25 seconds left. Murphy seemed destined to repeat history since he also scored the game winner over Northern Michigan last Saturday for his fourth goal of the game.
Although the first period was a deadlock, it didn't take long to light up the scoreboard in the second. Conner took a bad angle shot that found its way through Boron's knees nine seconds into the period.
"Any time you give up a goal in the first or last minute, it's tough," said junior forward Dave Iannazzo. "One of our goals is not to do that and that changed the momentum, but we bounced back."
Junior Mike Doyle did just that when he shoved in a rebound from a shot by Iannazzo, but nearly two minutes later Conner broke up-ice after Matt Gens' shot was blocked. Although LaMere rushed back to defend the 2-on-1, Conner faked the pass and beat Boron over his right shoulder for his sixth goal of the season.
SCSU would fight back to tie the game at 2-2 when Iannazzo added a nice clip to his 2002-04 highlight reel. On a 2-on-1 with Brent Hill on his left, Iannazzo used MTU's Lars Helminen as a prop when he put on a pretty hesitation toe-drag move and found the back of the net with a wrist shot.
The Huskies then scored the go-ahead at the 7:19 mark when sophomore Joe Jensen tipped in a shot by Matt Gens on a power-play.
With less than a minute remaining, MTU goalie Bryce Luker skated to the bench to give Tech the man advantage. Boron, who apparently had his stick pulled away by a Tech player, was forced to defend the crease with his blocker instead of challenging any angles. After a scrap around the net, Murphy flung a prayer inside the left post to bring the game into a scoreless OT.
The tie was not exactly a moral victory for SCSU seeing as though they outshot Michigan Tech 50-27, but the ingredients were there.
"Any time you put up 50 shots in one game you're doing something right," Iannazzo said. "That's one thing we worked on in practice, was trying to get more shots on goal. If we keep doing that we'll start seeing more five-goal games."
Iannazzo must have somehow sensed the kind of game that Saturday had in store for them. However, it only took the Huskies 35 shots to score six goals, two of which accounted for sophomore Billy Hengen's first collegiate goals.
Iannazzo started the night off right when he redirected Gens' shot inside the left post, but MTU would get three unanswered goals from Conner, Murphy and Clay Wilson, before Hengen scored his first goal with just under two minutes left in the period.
Like many of SCSU's scoring opportunities Friday, there was a scramble in front of Luker. After a few different Huskies fanned on rebound attempts and the play appeared to be over, Hengen found the lost puck lying behind Luker's left leg and poked it in.
Hengen is the all-time leading scorer in Holy Angels Academy history with 220 points, but after being held scoreless in his first year last season, the forward was left scratching his head.
"I felt real snake-bitten," Hengen said. "Last weekend I got a couple chances, and yesterday I got a couple more chances and I was just like, 'please go in.' I just needed that first one, and that was nice and easy."
Although Hengen didn't know at the time, the next one would be far from easy.
The Huskies would go on to score three unanswered goals in the second period after Coole took over in goal for Montgomery.
After Jensen's power-play goal, captain Matt Hendricks finally scored his first goal of the season on a slapshot inside the right post at the 16:40 mark. Under a minute later, Husky first-year forward Nate Raduns found a streaking Garrett Larson who beat Luker glove-side with a slapshot to give SCSU a 5-3 lead.
It was only fitting that Conner would score two straight goals in the third period to tie the game up, the first of which came when Coole collided with Hendricks outside of the crease at the left side of the net. Conner then wrapped around the right side and cashed in on the empty net. He then scored a power-play goal at the 15:00 mark to tie the game and give him his ninth goal of the season.
"(Conner) is phenomenal," Coole said. "He's going to be a force in this league and to be honest I hadn't even heard of the kid before this weekend. He turned my head."
Hengen then scored the game winner a minute later when he freed himself some room by wrapping around to the right side of the net where he wristed a topshelfer over Luker's left shoulder.
The Huskies survived four key penalty kills in the third period after taking six penalties. The last one came with about 3:10 remaining, when Tim Conboy took a boarding penalty when he smoked Murphy into the boards in the Huskies' own end. However, SCSU killed it and didn't allow a shot on net.
"That was a huge kill at the end," Coole said. "The third period was a blur, but if this were a movie, the climax would be the last three minutes. That was the game right there, and the weekend too."
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