Sir Wade Finegan Lifts Falcons Past Crusaders in Overtime Win

Thursday, December 30

Storrs, Conn.

4:05 p.m.

Bowling Green State University

Holy Cross

December 30, 2010 | Ice Hockey

By: by Ryan Gasser, Athletic Communications Graduate Assistant

STORRS, Conn. -- Bowling Green once again found itself with a lead heading into the third period of play, a trend found in six of their last seven games. Though the Falcons relinquished that lead in the final two minutes of regulation, they also found a way to pull out the overtime victory against the Holy Cross Crusaders. Their win awarded the Falcons with a third place finished in the 2010 Toyota UConn Classic.

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Wade Finegan (Toronto, Ontatio) proved to be the hero in the evening's game when he scored the game-winning goal off a faceoff in the Holy Cross zone. With 1:10 left in overtime, Camden Wojtala (Trenton, Mich.) lined up against Shayne Stockton in the faceoff circle where the freshman forward knocked the puck over to Finegan. The senior skated his way around relief goaltender Adam Roy and found an open hole for the game-winning ringer.

The Falcons took a two-goal lead out of the first period with tallies by Marc Rodriguez (Aurora, Ill.) and Ryan Peltoma (Brainerd, Minn.) giving the Falcons a comfortable lead to work with.

Rodriguez notched his sixth goal of the season and the second of the tournament at the 11:29 mark of the first period. His opportunity came after Jordan Samuels-Thomas (South Windsor, Conn.) diked out a Crusader defender and created enough space to put a shot on from the slot. The starting goaltender for Holy Cross, Derek Kump, tossed the puck aside but Rodriguez followed the loose puck and while skating away from the net finished the play by putting the puck into the Holy Cross cage for the 1-0 lead.

Bowling Green doubled its lead nearly seven minutes later when Ryan Peltoma was looking for help out in front of the net and from the top of the far-side faceoff circle lofted the puck toward Kump. Striking the goaltender in the glove-side shoulder, the puck then bounced and fell into the cage giving the Falcons a two goal advantage.

The Falcons only two shots on goal in the first period resulted in goals but their 13 shots on goal in the second period simply added pressure, not scoring. Andrew Hammond (Surrey, British Columbia) kept the lead for the Falcons heading into the third period, though the Crusaders scored once in the second period to cut the lead to one goal. At 15:50 in the second period, Holy Cross defenseman Matt Clune took a cross-ice pass from Everett Sheen to the house and beat Hammond one-on-one from the near-side faceoff circle.

Heading into the third period with a 2-1 score in favor of BGSU, the Crusaders received a flawless third period of goaltending from Adam Roy while adding the game-tying goal with 1:27 remaining in regulation. J.P. Martignetti entered the ice fresh off of a line change and slid in behind the Bowling Green defense to take a pass from teammate Matt Celin before creating another one-on-one offensive opportunity for Holy Cross. Martignetti entered the slot with the puck and with a wrister beat Hammond to tie the game at two.

Bowling Green's overtime win over Holy Cross was their second overtime win of the season dating back to their victory over Alabama-Huntsville on Oct. 22 at home. The win also marks their first win going back to their opening game of the RPI Holiday Invitational on Nov. 26, again against the Chargers.
Special teams were not a factor as both teams were perfect of the penalty kill and neither scored a power-play goal. Bowling Green held Holy Cross scoreless on four power play chances while coming up empty on two of their own.

Andrew Hammond earned his third win of the season while saving 27-of-29 shots against in the game. Eleven of his saves came in the third period, alone. He improves to 2-8-1 on the season.
With the win, Bowling Green finishes the Toyota UConn Classic 1-1-0 and a third place finish in the tournament behind Princeton and Connecticut.

Bowling Green (7-13-2, 2-10-2-0) will finish out the remainder of the season with an all-CCHA slate. They begin this 14 game stretch by hosting the Ferris State Bulldogs at home on Friday, Jan. 7, 2011. Game time is set for 7:05 p.m. on both Friday and Saturday.