ST. PAUL — St. Thomas scored three unanswered goals in the second period Saturday to pick up the 6-3 Central Collegiate Hockey Association victory over Bowling Green.
Bowling Green trimmed a St. Thomas lead down to one when Ville Immonen scored a goal with 10:02 left in the second period, making it 3-2 after the Falcons were quickly down 3-1 to the Tommies on the road.
That one-goal deficit was as close as BGSU (5-4-1, 2-2-1 CCHA) could make it against St. Thomas (3-5-3, 2-2-2).
Bowling Green struggled mightily on both sides of the power play, going 0 for 5 on power play opportunities and 1 for 4 on power play kills, and it was a major factor as to why its three-game point streak was snapped.
To make matters worse, the Falcons outshot the Tommies 53-50 and won more faceoffs (40-32).
St. Thomas got things rolling early when Cooper Gay scored his first of two power-play goes to make it 1-0 with 11:24 left in the first. Caige Sterzer doubled the Tommies’ lead when he scored a goal with six minutes left in the period.
BGSU was able to tighten things up a little less than a minute and a half later when sophomore Ben Doran scored his second goal of the season to make it 2-1, which was the score after the first period.
St. Thomas continued to get results on the power play early into the second when Matthew Gleason made it 3-1 Tommies with 18:34 in the middle period.
BG’s Immonen made it 3-2 about eight minutes later. It was second time finding the back of the net this season.
Lucas Wahlin (15:13) and Gay (16:20) each scored for the Tommies just about 90 seconds apart from one another, and it quickly became a three-goal, 5-2 lead heading into the last period.
Quinn Emerson tallied his first goal of the season for the Falcons when scored with 17:45 left in the third, making it 5-3 in favor of the Tommies.
It remained that way until St. Thomas’ Ryan O’Neill finally put the game on ice after scoring a goal to make it 6-3 with 2:23 left in the game.
In front of the net for the Falcons, Cole Moore made 27 stops on 33 tries and allowed all six goals. For the Tommies, Aaron Trotter made 29 saves on 32 attempts.
BGSU will look to start another point streak in a little less than two weeks when it faces CCHA foe Michigan Tech on Nov. 29 at 7:07 p.m. at the Slater Ice Arena in Bowling Green.
First Published November 17, 2024, 3:14 a.m.
