Bowling Green State University Athletics
Bowling Green State University
Notre Dame
Falcons End Regular Season at Notre Dame, Lose 4-1
March 02, 2002 | Ice Hockey
March 2, 2002
South Bend, Ind. - Several missed opportunities by Bowling Green and two first-period goals by host Notre Dame proved to be the difference on Saturday in the final regular-season contest for both teams, resulting in a 4-1 Irish victory.
The host Irish jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first period, first off of the stick of David Inman (6:45) and then from Rob Globke (12:39) on the ND power play. The shots on goal for both teams, however, were even after one period at 10-10. BGSU had a chance to cut into the lead late in the first when sophomore Roger Leonard caught ND goalie Morgan Cey out of the net. But, Leonard failed to get a shot off on the open net.
"I thought the difference in the game tonight was that we had empty-net chances that we missed," said BGSU coach Buddy Powers. "Both teams played much closer tonight. I thought we checked a lot better tonight.
"We didn't capitalize on the 5-on-3 chance early on. We're the type of team that we can't afford to miss those opportunities. And when you do you end up having to pull the goalie with two minutes left to get the offense going."
Notre Dame increased its shots in the second period, finishing with a 13-6 shot advantage in the second 20 minutes of action. Thanks to that, the Irish increased its lead to 3-0 at 16:07 in the second period with Globke's second goal of the night.
Bowling Green missed another opportunity midway through the second period when Greg Day broke out with the puck and had a two-on-one with linemate D'Arcy McConvey. McConvey couldn't redirect Day's pass just above the crease and the Irish maintained its 3-0 lead after two periods.
BGSU struck for the first time in the game early in the third period when the puck was dug out of the corner to Day in the right circle. Day moved in and passed the puck to McConvey who was camped just outside of the crease. McConvey wristed the puck past ND's Morgan Cey at 1:29 in the third to cut the Falcon deficit to 3-1. It was McConvey's 11th goal of the season while Day's assist increased his point streak to five games.
"D'Arcy's improved his game tremendously over the course of the year," said Powers. "He's really come along...he's playing with a lot of confidence right now."
The Falcons killed off two Notre Dame power plays in the third and outshot the Irish 14-12, but could get no closer than 3-1. Notre Dame's Connor Dunlop added an empty-net goal with just 43 seconds remaining for the final 4-1 verdict.
Notre Dame outshot BG 35-30 and were 1-for-6 on its power play. The Falcons were 0-for-4 with the man advantage.
BGSU travels to East Lansing, Mich., next weekend for a best-of-three series with Michigan State (24-7-5, 18-6-4 CCHA) in the first round of the CCHA Tournament. Game one of the series will be Friday, March 8, in Munn Ice Arena against the second-seeded Spartans.
"Going to Munn has always been a difficult thing for Bowling Green throughout its history," said Powers. "It's a tough place to win. In the playoffs you never know. We're a heavy, heavy underdog and yet if everything gets aligned right you never can tell what's going to happen. We could go in there and get ourself an upset. That's got to be the focal point of the week, to try and go in there and knock off one of the big dogs in the league."
