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MINNEAPOLIS -- Top-ranked Minnesota's school-record home
winning streak has snapped, and it took the country's No. 2 team to
break it. Marty Sertich backhanded a shot past Kellen Briggs 2:43 into
overtime to give Colorado College a 3-2 win Saturday. It was the first loss at Mariucci Arena for Minnesota, ranked
No. 1 in the USA Today and U.S. College Hockey Online polls, since
falling to North Dakota 4-2 on Jan. 23, 2004. The Gophers had won
20 in a row at home. "It just happened to land right in front of me," said Sertich,
who added an assist to up his nation-leading scoring total to 38
points. "I just took a backhand, it was a real lucky play." The winning shot came after Colorado College, ranked second in
both polls, outplayed the Gophers for most of the game. The Tigers
(17-3-1, 10-3-0 WCHA) had a 35-22 edge in shots and are 6-0-1 in
their last seven games. "We played as well as we can play on the road," said CC coach
Scott Owens. "We didn't make a lot of mistakes." Curtis McElhinney made 22 saves for the Tigers, while Brett
Sterling scored goals number 18 and 19, tying him with Minnesota's
Ryan Potulny for the national lead. Colorado College beat Minnesota for the second time in three
games this season. The teams split a pair of games in Colorado
Springs a month ago, CC winning the first 3-1 and Minnesota taking
the return match 7-2. Minnesota, which fell at Boston College 2-1 on Monday, lost
back-to-back games for just the second time this season. The
Gophers lost at Alaska Anchorage 3-2 on Oct. 16, and were shut out
six days later at North Dakota 6-0. The Gophers won 14 of their next 18 games. "There's no question the team that deserved to win won," said
Gopher captain Judd Stevens. "We didn't play as hard as we need to
play to beat a great team like that." Despite playing with a lack of energy, Minnesota (16-6-0, 9-4-0)
took a 2-1 lead into the third period on second-period goals by
Evan Kauffman and Danny Irmen. Sterling, who scored CC's first goal midway through the second
period, tied the game at 2-2 with a controversial goal early in the
third period. Sterling crossed in front of Briggs and shot the puck
into his pads. But Sterling whacked at the puck again, and it
trickled into the net just over the goal line. Both goaltenders came up big in the closing minutes of
regulation to force the extra period. Briggs stopped Jimmy
Kilpatrick on a point-blank shot with 1:19 left, while McElhinney
made a sprawling save on a shot by Potulny with 10 seconds
remaining. Briggs made 32 saves. The Tigers won for the second time in three overtime games. They
beat North Dakota 3-2 on Nov. 5 and tied Ohio State on Dec. 30.
Minnesota fell to 2-1 playing extra periods, its wins coming 3-2
over Minnesota State, Mankato, Oct. 30 and at St. Cloud State 2-1
Dec. 10.
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