Difficult defeat tough to swallow in Denver

There are always two sides of a story. One side says that the UND Fighting Sioux men's hockey team has made the Frozen Four for four consecutive seasons and that is a major accomplishment. The other side says that this fact isn't good enough and after a 6-1 drubbing at the hands of the Boston College Eagles in the national semifinals at the Pepsi Center in Denver, Colorado this past Thursday, that side of the story is being told the most.

The Sioux were man-handled early and often in this one giving up four first period and two second period goals en route to their third straight exit from the Frozen Four against Boston College.

"You don't want to say you didn't want it," said senior forward Kyle Radke who played in his last collegiate game in the loss. "Boston College, they're a well-coached team, very well-trained, they just executed. All the credit to them. They did what they had to do and they got it done."

BC were paced by Hobey Baker finalist Nathan Gerbe who tallied a hat-trick and assist for a four point night and the play of freshman goaltender John Muse who stopped 29 of 30 Sioux shots on goal and didn't give up a goal until Jake Marto found the back of the net with 1:16 left to play in the game.

"He's executing on damn near every one of his scoring opportunities," said Radke of Gerbe. "I really hadn't watched him much throughout the year, there was a lot of talk about Porter for the Hobey, but the kid plays well. All the power to him."

After a UND onslaught to start the game, BC scored four straight goals in the first and knocked the Sioux back on their heels. While most of the scoring would eventually come off the stick of Gerbe, Andrew Orpik opened the scoring with a goal at 7:08 of the first. The score went to 1-0 on a turnover in the UND zone that saw Kyle Kucharski gather the puck and make a nice pass to Orpik who was with him on a 2-on-1 into the Sioux zone. Orpik then buried a one-timer that beat UND goal Jean-Philippe Lamoureux to his far-side.

The Sioux nearly tied it at one just three minutes later on the power play when a Chay Genoway slap shot from the blue line clanged off the post. That shot would be the last quality chance for UND in the period. Then Gerbe went to work.

With the Sioux back on the power play, Gerbe picked up a loose puck that bounded off a BC defender after a shot from the point and skated in all alone on Lamoureux. Gerbe did the rest, beating Lamoureux five-hole and shocking a partisan UND crowd at the Pepsi Center and giving the Eagles an early 2-0 lead at 13:14 of the first.

"The one that I'd like to have back is that second one," said Lamoureux of the short-handed tally. "I felt like I came out and challenged; he just beat me with a really nice shot."

Even with the score at 2-0, UND was skating well and the feel of the arena was that the Sioux were just getting beat on unlucky bounces. This changed just two minutes late when Gerbe scored his second goal of the period. This time with even strength, Gerbe scored on a tough angle shot after gobbling up his own rebound and skating around the UND net. The shot seemed to catch Lamoureux off guard and after making the stop initially on the shot, the puck trickled through his pads and crawled over the goal line to make it 3-0 at 15:13 of the first.

Down 3-0, the Sioux looked to survive the first period in hopes of making a comeback later, but another defensive turnover led to another BC goal with just 15.8 seconds left in the period that dealt a crushing blow to UND. A poke check in the Sioux zone by Pat Gannon led to a centering pass to Dan Bertram at the point. Bertram then sniped a wrist shot just under the crossbar and past Lamoureux for a 4-0 lead. UND head coach Dave Hakstol felt this goal may have been the back breaker for the Sioux.

"I thought the turning point was more-so the third and fourth goals," said Hakstol. "We didn't get out of that period after the fourth goal. That was a pretty tough hill to climb."

The second period didn't see much change except for the fact that Gerbe continued to dominate. Gerbe tallied his hat-trick goal, this time on the power play, at 6:37 of the second all but ending UND's chances at a comeback. The Eagles scored again at 11:58 to round out their night.

Muse seemed to be looking for a shutout but Marto's late goal was Muse's only blemish of the night.

UND's season once again ended in the national semifinal and the team finished their season at 28-11-4. Although they came up short once again, Hakstol felt no need to take anything away from the season.

"This is a pretty special group of guys and obviously tonight is not the way we envisioned things going," said Hakstol. "That doesn't take anything away, though, from the character and the class of these guys."