BOWLING GREEN — The hometown kid delivered for the No. 1 team in the country on Friday.
The Brendan Furry show brought 140-plus friends and family clad in Minnesota State purple into Bowling Green State University’s Slater Family Ice Arena, and the St. Francis de Sales graduate gave the crowd what it wanted in the second period.
With about 8:40 on the clock, Furry took a feed near the left circle from Julian Napravnik, weaved through the BGSU defense, and flicked the puck past Falcons netminder Christian Stoever for a two-goal lead, which sent the “visiting” crowd into a frenzy for a moment he surely will never forget.
Furry’s first goal was the only insurance the Mavericks needed in their 3-1 victory in a Central Collegiate Hockey Association showdown over Bowling Green.
“That was a tremendous atmosphere to be a part of,” Furry said. “Just having your family and friends in the stands, it’s unbelievable. But I think it just shows a better win for the team. It’s a tough building to play in, and I think we just showed our resilience and came out with three points.”
The CCHA awards three points in the standings for regulation victories.
He delivered an encore in the waning seconds of the game, as BGSU emptied the net for added offense. Furry beat a pair of Falcons to the puck in the Mavericks’ end and buried the empty-net chance with 18 seconds to play.
The junior Furry earned the start at center in place of Nathan Smith, who along with Mavericks head coach Mike Hastings traveled to Beijing to compete in the Winter Olympics this month.
“It’s really cool that I got the bounces tonight,” Furry said. “To be able to feed off the energy and be able to play in an atmosphere like that in an away building, it just is something that not many players get to experience.
“[The crowd] was family, friends, people that I grew up playing with, people that work with my parents, stuff like that. It was people all the way down the line since I was playing hockey when I was three years old. Probably some that I haven’t seen in a long time. The St. Francis hockey team’s here, the coaches, the president of the school. It really means a lot to me that they came out.”
The Falcons’ offense had trouble breaking through Minnesota State early. Bowling Green (13-11-3, 10-8-1 CCHA) recorded a pedestrian two shots on goal in the game’s opening period.
“We weren’t very good in the first,” Falcons coach Ty Eigner said. “We were watching Minnesota State play hockey. We were on the wrong side of the battles, we weren’t engaged in the battles. Minnesota State came out ready to play, and we didn’t look like we weren’t ready to play right away. We were fortunate to get out of that first period only down 1-0.”
Minnesota State (26-5-0, 18-3-0) capitalized on a goal from second-string defenseman Andy Carroll with 17:04 to play in the first. He received the pass from Napravnik, and Cade Borchardt earned an additional assist on the play.
BGSU picked up some momentum in the second period. In the opening 3:30, BGSU had already registered four shots on goal. The telling statistic from that period, however, was the Falcons’ 31 shots, but just 13 on goal. Minnesota State took 12, and six were on goal in the frame, and that included Furry’s tally.
“We didn’t make any adjustments; we just started to play harder,” Eigner said. “We didn’t change a thing. We just told our guys we needed to play harder and we needed to win more races, we needed to engage in stick battles, we needed to move our feet. We were standing around hoping things were going to happen, not going and trying to make soemthing positive happen.”
BGSU took 73 shots in Friday’s game, with 28 on goal. Minnesota State took 38 shots, and 25 were on goal. Minnesota State blocked 23 shots to BGSU’s six.
Bowling Green made it interesting late by at last getting by Minnesota State goaltender Dryden McKay. Nathan Burke found the net with 5:06 to play, with assists from Gabriel Chicoine and Austen Swankler. The Falcons continued to pepper the net with 11 shots, but McKay had to make just three saves to close the game out.
McKay recorded 27 saves, and Stoever had 22.
“That guy’s been like that all year,” Furry said. “He’s been our backbone of our team, and you rely on a guy like that in a big game. For him to be able to step up and win us that game, that was huge.”
First Published February 5, 2022, 4:12 a.m.
