SUPERIOR, Wis. — The No. 4 seeded UW-River Falls men's hockey team won game two of the WIAC Tournament Semifinal series 2-1 at No. 1 seed UW-Superior Saturday night, forcing the mini-game in which the Falcons prevailed again 2-1 to advance to the WIAC Tournament Championship game.
With their backs against the wall coming off a 4-1 loss last night, the Falcons responded with a 2-1 win to even series before the mini-game heroics. UWRF will travel to face the winner of #2 UW-Stevens Point/#3 UW-Eau Claire next Saturday, March 8 in the WIAC Championship.
At the 13-minute mark of period one, senior forward
Arsenii Smekhnov picked the right time to convert on his first goal of the season to give the Falcons the first lead of the night and they carried a 1-0 lead into the first intermission. In the second period,
Alex Atwill sniped a shot through a Yellowjacket screen on the power play to give UWRF a 2-0 lead, which stood as the eventual game-winner as the home team scored late in regulation, but it wasn't enough as the Falcons won to even the series at 1-1 to force the mini-game.
Brennan Boynton made 26 saves to earn his 17th win of the season.
Despite the Yellowjackets' late push in game two, the Falcons quickly stole back the momentum with a
Dylan Smith power play goal 1:41 into the mini-game as he was open on the back door and scored on a nice cross-ice feed from
Alex Atwill. UWRF held its 1-0 lead for 15 minutes before UWS made things interesting, tying the game at one apiece with just over three minutes left to play.
Exactly two minutes later,
Cole Teleki scored the mini-game game-winner, and the Falcons held on to reach the WIAC Championship for the first time since 2016.
