It was the Blugold mens hockey team’s first National Collegiate Athletics Association bid since 1989 and their first time hosting a tournament game at Hobbs Ice Center, and they were down by one against Saint John’s College (Minn.) in the first round game.

But the Blugolds certainly came back with a vengeance, scoring three goals in just a little over three minutes in the second period.

The Blugolds won 4-2, and with neither team scoring in the third period, the team’s three-minute reign and some successful saves from Blugolds senior goalie Brandon Stephenson secured the win.

Senior forward Andrew McCabe, who had one assist on the night, said the Blugolds are trying to go back to what defined them all season.

“We got to run through all of our systems tonight and I think everything was effective when we played hard,” McCabe said. “And that was the biggest thing; just getting back to playing hard and getting dirty goals. We talked about that earlier in the week, and all year that’s what’s made us successful.”

The teams came out of the first period tied 1-1, but at eleven minutes into the second period, the Johnnies scored again.

Just under a minute later, Devin Mantha kicked off the three-score streak, and Isaiah Bennis followed up with another goal less than two minutes later.
Scoring goals right in front of the other teams’ goalies is something that the Blugolds have made a pattern, McCabe said.

And they certainly pulled that off a few times against Saint John’s.

The team’s fourth goal, netted by senior forward Kurt Weston just a touch more than a minute after Bennis’s goal, soared straight over the heads of a couple of Saint John’s players who were trying their best to keep the net covered.

Weston, who also scored the team’s first goal of the night, said winning the game was a bit of a relief after falling to St. Norbert (Wis.) in the Northern Collegiate Hockey Association finals game last Saturday.

“It just goes to show how electric we can be when we start working hard and doing all the little things right and playing blue-collar kind of hockey, where we can get those goals where they’re not pretty, but they’re going in the net,” Weston said. “So, we don’t ask ‘How?’ we actually just ask ‘How many?’”

With the win in the first round of the NCAA Championship, the Blugolds now advance to the quarterfinals, and will face off against St. Norbert on Saturday, after losing to them only a week before. If the men can make sure they keep playing this way in the quarterfinals, McCabe said, they have a chance to go all the way.

“We’ve learned throughout the year that it’s important to not be too high or too low,” McCabe said. “Hockey’s a game of mistakes. The good teams respond to those mistakes in a positive way instead of a negative way and that was what made us
successful tonight.”

Head Coach Matt Loen said he thinks the team will bring their best for the quarterfinals game.

“I don’t think we played our best game, so hopefully we’re saving it for Saturday,” he said. “In the third period, we were kind of complacent … but we’ll be forced to play better at St. Norbert.”

But getting better is something the team succeeds at, McCabe said.

“We’ve worked really hard the past four years to build this program up,” McCabe said. “With the coaching staff (and the team), and it’s been a joint effort. I mean with all the work we put in preseason, during the summer, we like to say it’s a 52-week season. We’ve had that mentality the last three years, and it’s been really fun this year for it to pay off.”

This Saturday will be the fifth time the Blugolds face off against

St. Norbert this season, with their current record against the Green Knights standing at 2-1-1.

Stephenson said one of the benefits of playing St. Norbert so soon after losing to them in the finals is that they know what to expect from them.

“What we’ve learned, especially last Saturday, is you can’t take a shift off and you can’t make too many little mistakes,” Stephenson said. “We’re going to give up goals next time, that’s just how it is, but it’s how we bounce back and how we respond to it.”

Weston said getting the chance to play St. Norbert is “huge” for the team in more ways than one.

“We kind of look at it this way, that it was almost nice to lose to them Saturday, — because  now we’ve got that sour taste in our mouths and we want revenge.”