Minnesota Beats Minn. Duluth 5-4 In OT
DULUTH, Minn. (AP) -- Nate Condon batted a puck out of the air and into the net for the winning goal as Minnesota stunned Minnesota Duluth 5-4 in overtime Friday in the Western Collegiate Hockey Association.
With less than a minute to play, Taylor Matson stole the puck near the boards and flipped a no-look pass toward the crease, where Condon batted the floating puck into the net.
Erik Haula scored twice for Minnesota (3-0-0, 1-0-0), which blew two two-goal leads. Haula's goal at 19:16 of the third period forced overtime.
Condon said the winning goal happened so fast there wasn't a lot of time to think about it.
"I hopped off the bench and he blindly tossed it," Condon said. "It popped off my stick and I batted it in thr air."
There wasn't much UMD goalie Kenny Reiter could do. Reiter made 39 saves.
Kyle Rau also had a pair of goals for the Golden Gophers, who were coming off back-to-back shutout wins to start the season. They took leads of 2-0 and 3-1 against the defending national champion Bulldogs (1-2-0, 0-1-0).
Kent Patterson had 46 saves for Minnesota.
Caleb Herbert and Justin Crandall had a goal and assist each for Minnesota Duluth.
Haula's pass through the crease deflected off a Bulldog player's skate to tie the game at 4-4 with just 44 seconds remaining. The goal came a little more than a minute after Herbert broke a 3-3 tie.
"To our guys' credit, they found a way to score and send the game into overtime and to win it," Minnesota coach Don Lucia said."It was a big win. To be able to get a win in overtime is important to us."
Travis Oleksuk and Drew Olson added gols for the Bulldogs.
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