LAKE PLACID, N.Y. (Courtesy of NCAA.com) - Stout defense helped the Norwich University men's hockey team earn the top seed in this year's Division III playoffs. It's also what got them past No. 5 Plattsburgh State on Friday--and into Saturday's national championship game. BOXSCORE
The Cadets (25-1-4) kept the upstart Cardinals' offense at bay long enough to hang on for a 3-2 victory in a game that came down the final seconds at Lake Placid's Herb Brooks Arena in Friday night's late semifinal. Steve Coon's unassisted goal at 8 minutes, 9 seconds of the third period staked Norwich to a 3-1 lead, and the Cadets narrowly withstood a furious Plattsburgh rally down the stretch to advance to tomorrow's finals and a date with No. 3 St. Norbert.
"The rivalry between Norwich and Plattsburgh--we don't really like each other very much," said Norwich's First-Team All-American goalie Ryan Klingensmith, who had 29 saves. "It's easy to get up for them."
The Cadets were up early, creating numerous scoring chances and stifling the young Cardinals' offense. Craig Serino gave Norwich the early lead at 5:24 in the first period off assists from Colin Mulvey and DJ Fimiani, but that was all the Cadets would get in the opening frame. Norwich hit two posts in the first, one of which was close enough to force a review by the officials. Plattsburgh was fortunate to trail just 1-0 at the first intermission.
"It was a great start, we put a lot of pressure on them," said Norwich coach Mike McShane. "But we had chances to get more in the first and fanned on a few of them. They came out and outplayed us in the second."
Indeed, the Cardinals (19-6-4) knotted the score at one apiece when Andrew Willock finally beat Klingensmith after a scrum in front of the net at the 7:07 mark of the second. They appeared to have wrested the momentum from Norwich. That's when Pier-Oliver Cotnoir made the play of the game.
The hero of the Cadets' quarterfinal victory over Elmira thanks to his game-winning overtime goal, Cotnoir came up big a bit earlier this time with the go-ahead goal with 56 seconds remaining in the second period. From just inside the blue line, Cotnoir unleashed a bullet that whizzed past Plattsburgh goalie Josh Leis' (32 saves) head. Back up by one heading into the third periods, the Cadets were suddenly sitting pretty again.
"That was huge from a momentum standpoint," McShane said of Cotnoir's tally. "In the second period things swung their way. You just have to weather the storm and have a good goalie."
That's precisely what the Cadets had to do in the third as well, a period in which the Cardinals fired off nearly half their shots for the game with 15. Mike Kavanagh's goal (assisted by Matt Bessing and Chris Wieland) with 6:30 to play trimmed the Plattsburgh deficit back to one following Coon's score earlier in the final frame. The Cardinals pulled Leis from net with 1:40 remaining and put Norwich's top-ranked defense to the test. Plattsburgh couldn't get a clean look on net, however, and the Cadets escaped.
"I thought tonight we played well enough to win," said Plattsburgh State coach Bob Emery. "We let in two soft goals. On the other hand, (Leis) made some great saves. You'd almost rather he stop all the easy ones and let the tough ones go in. We did a good job in our cycling today, and I thought we had some good attacks tonight. We just needed to find scoring at the right time. They've got six good defenders and real good size. They played well on defense tonight."
As a result, the Cadets will play another defensive juggernaut in the finals on Saturday. St. Norbert bottled up Oswego State's high-powered offense in Friday's other semifinal.
"You want the adrenaline just to carry you on," said McShane, referring to finishing the later semifinal less than 20 hours before Saturday's 5 p.m. start. "Our guys know how much the game means. I think the passion and momentum of tonight should be enough.".
