Notre Dame Hockey Sweeps Big Ten Titles
In its maiden voyage in the Big Ten as a hockey member, No. 3-ranked Notre Dame swept both the regular season and tournament titles following a thrilling 3-2 overtime victory versus No. 4 Ohio State at the Compton Family Ice Arena (5,515 in attendance) on Saturday night.
Sophomore forward Cam Morrison tallied his eighth goal of the season — and third game winner — on a good feed from senior captain Jake Evans (his team high 29th this year) at the 9:23 mark in overtime to complete the sweep of the 2017-18 league championships.
Overall, it represented Notre Dame’s seventh conference title in its history, all occurring since 2007 under head coach Jeff Jackson, with the other five coming in the CCHA (two in the regular season and three in the conference tournament).
Next on the agenda is the 16-team NCAA Tournament, which will be unveiled at noon today (March 18) on ESPNU.
Following the win versus the Buckeyes, 25-9-2 Notre Dame stood No. 2 in the PairWise rankings with a 58.64 rating, behind only 25-8-6 St. Cloud State (59.17). Especially noteworthy is five of the top 13 teams in the country are from the Big Ten, the most of any league. In addition to the No. 2 Irish and No. 4 Ohio State, the conference also has No. 8 Michigan, No. 11 Penn State and No. 13 Minnesota.
The NCAA Tournament begins next weekend and will be capped with the April 5-7 Frozen Four — where Notre Dame advanced for the third time last season — at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, Minn.
There are four Regional sites — Sioux Falls, S.D. (West), Allentown, Pa. (Midwest), Bridgeport, Conn. (East) and Worcester, Mass. (Northeast) — with the East and Midwest on a Friday-Saturday schedule (March 23-24) and the Midwest and Northeast on Saturday-Sunday (March 24-25).
On Sunday afternoon Notre Dame received the No. 1 seed in the East and will play Michigan Tech on Friday (March 23) at 3 p.m. in the Webster Bank Arena in Bridgeport. The game will be telecast on ESPN2. The winner will play the winner of Providence-Clarkson the next day at 6 p.m., on ESPNU.
The other No. 1 seeds in the 16-team field were St. Cloud State (West), Ohio State (Midwest) and Cornell (Northeast).
Defeating Ohio State
The Buckeyes entered the Big Ten title game as one of the nation’s hottest teams with a six-game unbeaten string, not including a 5-1 win at Notre Dame on Feb. 10.
However, the Fighting Irish asserted themselves early on first period goals from senior forward Bo Brauer (4:09) and then on the power play from freshman defenseman Matt Hellickson (14:30) for a 2-0 advantage after the first 20 minutes.
Buckeye goals in the second and third period knotted the game, but Notre Dame sophomore goaltender Cale Morris — already named the league’s Player of the Year — added to his hardware collection with Tournament MVP honors while making 41 saves (seven in overtime).
"He's our rock,” Jackson said. “You don't win without great goaltending and he's been that way for us all season long. I think the most important thing is that he's a very humble kid. Confident internally but he has a great sense of humility in him, an all-around solid individual."
"He's meant the most to us,” said Morrison of Morris. “It gives us confidence knowing that we have a player like him back there who's going to make saves at the times we need him … It's an amazing feeling having him in the pipes."
“(The win) was a group effort,” said Morris of his national high 24th victory as the starting goaltender. “… (Early in the season) we weren't getting the results we wanted but we were still moving forward, both as a team and as individuals, so it's nice to see the results now."
Notre Dame is 21-2-2 this season when scoring first, 10-1-1 when leading after the first period and 19-1-0 when ahead after two periods.
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