DULUTH, MN -- The No. 5 ranked UMD Bulldogs (21-10-2, 16-5-2 NCHC) weathered a sleepy start, rattling off four unanswered goals on their way to a 4-1 victory over the St. Cloud State University Huskies (13-14-2, 10-11-2 NCHC) Friday night at Amsoil Arena. Thanks to a little help from the University of Nebraska-Omaha Mavericks and their 4-1 win over North Dakota, UMD now sits just three points back of UND for first place in the NCHC, with just one game left to play. 

With that in mind, the Bulldogs will have a little extra to play for on senior night, as another victory, and North Dakota loss would give UMD a share of the Penrose Cup, and the No. 1 seed in the NCHC playoffs. 

"I'm just making sure we try and win a game for our seniors tomorrow," head coach Scott Sandelin, who coached his 800th career game with UMD Friday, said postgame. "It'll be fun. Hopefully something to play for a little bit more than we would have."

To do so, the Bulldogs will look to have a better start than Friday night’s contest, where they came out flat, finding themselves down 1-0 just eight minutes in after SCSU winger Zach Okabe snuck a shot past UMD netminder, Hunter Shepard. 

“I don’t think we were very happy with that first period, so we definitely can’t start slow tomorrow,” senior winger Jade Miller said. “We need three periods like our second two tonight. We just gotta feel good about the hockey we are playing heading into the postseason next weekend.”

The Bulldogs were able to weather the early storm, thanks in large part to another strong effort in net from Shepard. After making six saves in the first period, the UMD netminder put the team on his back, keeping the Huskies off the scoreboard in the second, despite facing three consecutive SCSU powerplays. 

“Every game he keeps us in it,” senior defenseman and co-captain Nick Wolff said of Shepard.  “It was no different tonight. Hopefully he can do that the next nine or ten games for us.”

Shepard finished the game with 22 saves on 23 shots faced (.957 SV%), while Huskies goaltender David Hrenak finished with 31 saves on 34 shots faced (.912 SV%). 

UMD finally got on the board late in the middle frame thanks to freshman winger Quinn Olson’s seventh goal of the season. Olson took a drop pass from defenseman Jarod Hilderman and let off a wrist shot that deflected off the stick of an SCSU defender and through the five-hole of Hrenak to tie the game at one a piece.

“Once [Quinn] got that first one we rallied the troops, and we were all for it.” Wolff said. 

The goal was Olson’s third in four games since he was added to UMD’s top line after sophomore center Jackson Cates went down with an injury. 

The Bulldogs came out with momentum in the third, and quickly jumped ahead thanks to junior Koby Bender’s third goal of the season. Hrenak went to play the puck behind his net, leaving it for no one and Bender was able to get there first, beating the Huskies goaltender to the net to give UMD the 2-1 lead just over two minutes into the final frame. Bender’s goal would go on to stand as the game winner. 

“Koby is one of the best skaters there is,” Miller said of Bender. “He puts Hrenak under a lot of pressure there and he kind of doesn’t know what to do with the puck so he just kind of leaves it. Hats off to Koby to have that killer instinct to take it to the net.”

Sophomore winger Cole Koepke added to the Bulldogs lead ten minutes later with his 15th goal overall, and 13th in conference play. The 2018 Tampa Bay Lightning draft pick used his lightning speed to blow by the Huskies defense on the play, finishing it off by beating Hrenak to the far post with a wrap-around. 

 “There’s a lot of fast guys in college hockey but I'll argue he's right at the top,” Sandelin said of Koepke. “It's so effective when you can have those first two or three strides to get going.”

Koepke added an empty net goal with 20 seconds left to seal the victory for the Bulldogs. 

UMD will go for the series sweep tonight with NCHC commissioner Josh Fenton and the Penrose Cup in the building. Puck drop is set for 7:07 pm from Amsoil Arena. The game will also be broadcast live locally on MY9 Sports, and on NCHC.tv. A radio broadcast can be heard on KDAL 610 with Bruce Ciskie on the call.