A regular three period game was not enough to determine an outcome between No. 1 seed Lindenwood and No. 4 seed Iowa State in the second round of the Central States Collegiate Hockey League (CSCHL) Championship on Saturday. A contest that began in the afternoon went well into the night before the Lions finally emerged victorious 5-4 in the fifth overtime period at the Illinois Ice Arena in Champaign – Urbana, Illinois.
In a strange twist of competition, Lindenwood did not hold a lead at any point until the very end as the Cyclones scored first just 3:34 into the opening period. It was 1-0 Iowa State until the Lions tied it early in the second off the blade of
Ryan Finnegan, assisted by
Hayden Ursulak at 1:13. The Cyclones took a 2-1 lead just over three minutes later, but once again, Lindenwood squared things up when
Brendan Murphy hit the back of the net off a pass from
Kyler Newman at 8:25 of the period. Iowa State only needed another five minutes to retake the lead and the Cyclones made it 4-2 early in the third period, which set up a heart-stopping comeback effort by the Lions.
Austin Wilk split the pipes off a feed from
Hayden Dawes at 6:37, but Lindenwood still trailed by a goal. The Lions continued to create scoring chances, but the Iowa State goaltender turned them all away. As the clock ticked under two minutes left in regulation, head coach
Rick Zombo pulled his netminder for the extra attacker. The move finally paid off with just six seconds remaining when Finnegan sounded the horn on a play set up by Dawes and Murphy to tie the contest at four and begin the marathon scenario.
After allowing eight goals combined through the first 60 minutes of play, Cyclones goalie Nikita Kozak and Lindenwood goalie
Cooper Seedott decided to stop everything that came their way over the next 97 minutes of game action. The Lions put the puck on goal more often and even had two power play chances, but the score did not change through the first overtime, the second overtime, the third overtime, the fourth overtime, and into the fifth overtime period. With just under three minutes left in the fifth overtime, and the level of exhaustion at an all-time high,
Vegard Faret took advantage of a slight Iowa State miscue and broke free with the puck to score the game-winner unassisted at the 17:18 mark of the period and the 1:57:18 mark of the game. The longest contest in Lindenwood program history finally ended with the Lions on top.
Lindenwood outshot the Cyclones 94-46 as the goalies for both teams played the entire time. Kozak stopped 89 of the 94 shots he faced for Iowa State and Seedott stopped 42 of the 46 pucks he faced for the Lions to earn the victory.
With the win, Lindenwood improved to 26-7-0 overall and to 15-2-0 in CSCHL play. For their marathon effort, the Lions advanced to the conference championship final where they will face No. 3 seed and host Illinois Sunday afternoon. The Illini upset No. 2 seed Ohio late Saturday night. The puck drops at 1 p.m. at the Illinois Ice Arena in Champaign – Urbana, Illinois.
