ST. CLOUD, Minn. - It was a familiar, albeit highly frustrating, storyline tonight for the Fighting Sioux.
North Dakota registered an unheard of 96 shots attempts, outshot St. Cloud State 46-26 and carried much of the play over the game's final 55 minutes. But the end result was another one-goal loss, this time a 4-3 defeat at the hands of the host Huskies.
The loss drops No. 11 UND to 13-11-5 overall and 8-10-3 in the WCHA. The Huskies, tied for first place, improved to 19-8-4 and 14-6-3.
SCSU goalie Dan Dunn made 43 saves, including 33 in the final two periods, and twice had help from his goal posts. It was the second straight dominant performance against UND by Dunn, who had a career-high 47 stops against the Sioux on Nov. 14.
The Huskies scored twice in the final four minutes of the second period to erase a 3-2 Sioux lead, with Travis Novak's goal with 56.3 seconds left in the period ultimately standing up as the winner.
The two teams exchanged leads four times in a highly entertaining affair. SCSU opened the scoring just 40 seconds into the game when Tony Mosey let a 3-on-2 rush up the left side, circled around the Sioux net and found Husky defenseman Oliver Lauridsen jumping into the rush, and Lauridsen buried a one-timer into the open net for his fourth goal of the season.
Despite the fast Husky start, UND settled down and tied the game almost exactly six minutes later. A Dunn rebound found its way to UND's Jake Marto (Jr., Grand Forks) at the bottom of the left circle, and Marto slammed a bouncing puck that squeaked through Dunn to tie the game.
The goal broke a career-long 23-game goal scoring drought for Marto, who was playing in his 100th career game.
Another lengthy drought was snapped late in the period. Sophomore forward Brett Hextall (Manhattan Beach, Calif.), returning to the lineup after missing eight games with an injury, wrapped home a Dunn rebound on the power-play to end UND's 0-for-32 drought with the man advantage. The goal, Hextall's ninth of the year and team-leading sixth on the power-play, gave the Sioux a 2-1 lead after one.
However, it took the Huskies less than a minute and a half to pull even. With SCSU enjoying a power-play, Garrett Roe slammed home a rebound on the doorstep to make it 2-2 just 86 seconds into the period.
UND found the equalizer with 7:12 left in the period on a terrific setup by freshman forward Corban Knight (High River, Alberta). Knight worked his way out from behind the SCSU net and fed a goalmouth pass to Chris VandeVelde (Sr., Moorhead, Minn.) and VandeVelde one-timed the puck past a sprawled Dunn for a 3-2 lead.
That lead would be short lived, though. With the Huskies on another power-play, a Taylor Johnson point shot ricocheted off the end boards directly to Ryan Lasch at the side of the net, and the Husky scoring leader banked the puck off Sioux goalie Brad Eidsness (Chestermere, Alberta) for his 16th goal of the year.
Novak would score the eventual game winner three minutes later, converting a Ben Hanowski feed on a 3-on-1 with the Sioux trying to make a line change.
The Huskies finished 2-for-4 on the power-play while the Sioux went 1-for-3.
Eidsness made 22 saves in the loss.
The two teams will square off at 7:07 p.m. on Saturday.
Notes: Knight had two assists, the first of his career ... VandeVelde enters Saturday's game with 99 career points ... Marto wore UND's alternating assistant captain 'A,' which sophomore forward Mario Lamoureux (Grand Forks) wore last week ... Junior forward Evan Trupp (Anchorage, Alaska) will play in his 100th career game on Saturday.
- Go Sioux -
