Tonight’s game was a classic, hard fought contest between two teams that wanted it bad. Unfortunately for the Cats, they got the short-end of the stick. ND 2 NMU 1.

Out of the gate, the Cats, or rather Mark Olver did exactly the opposite of what Coach Kyle and the squad wanted to unfold—give the Irish powerplays. If this wasn’t a carbon copy of the two previous games in February, I don’t know how anything can look so similar. Mark lost his composure and as a result, Notre Dame went up 1-0 on the powerplay at 4:15 by Kyle Lawson. For the period, the Cats gave the Irish three powerplays, a major bad move. And no, you cannot blame Tom Anastos or his “Soccer on Ice” ideals. They were good solid calls.

In the second period, NMU started to show why they were so strong in the second half of the season. They took it to the Irish for the first part of the period, drawing a penalty and putting a lot of pressure on the D-core. But, the combination of great saves by Jordan Pearce and a couple posts kept the Cats off the board.

The third period was a great scenario. Down 1-0, NMU worked extremely hard and put it all on the line. Cats fans should at least be proud of how badly they wanted to win this game. And low and behold, after a great timeout by Coach Kyle, and draw win by Jared Brown, Nick Sirota threw a shot on goal (18:37) that was first reviewed, because it may have been kicked in by Olver. But the replay was too hazy. NMU made the great comeback, based on pure grit and mind power. But tonight, the luck of the Irish was truly with ND. After an innocent shot on Brian Stewart was caught with the glove, the puck fell out, and an opportunistic Ben Ryan was there to tap in the game winning goal just 23 seconds after the tying goal. If this Notre Dame team doesn’t remind you of the great Lake State teams of the early 90’s, I don’t know what to say. The Irish are solid and play like vultures just like the Lakers. Overall, it was a classic game, and NMU should be proud it played toe to toe with the #1 team in the land. Had NMU not lost a few games against Tech and Ferris early in the season, they’d be in the mix for an NCAA bid for sure.