BC Beats Notre Dame 4-1 in WCHA-less NCAA Final
Nathan Gerbe, the tournament's most outstanding player with 5 goals and 3 assists in two games, No. 9, helping out freshman BC goalie John Muse |
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April 12, 2008
By John Gilbert
DENVER, COLO. --- It was a big day for a special little hockey player Saturday, as well as a statement for perseverence by two fourth-place teams, when Nathan Gerbe scored two goals and assisted on two more to lead Boston College to a 4-1 victory over Notre Dame in the NCAA championship final.
The game may have been something of a call to arms for the WCHA, which spent its second year in a row by not supplying a team in the Frozen Four final, and that after five consecutive NCAA championships, and final-game appearances in seven consecutive years, six of which ended with titles. After 36 NCAA winners, the WCHA still is the dominant conference by far. BC's victory was the seventh for teams from Hockey East, the last coming in 2001 when the Eagles beat North Dakota in the final.
However, this year's tournament begs a couple of questions. Is it a changing of the guard? Has the WCHA been so successful for so long that member schools have perhaps taken for granted tournament success?
With six of the 16 selections for the NCAA tournament, it seemed likely to make it to Saturday night's final at the Pepsi Center in Denver. Only North Dakota reached the Frozen Four, however, and the Fighting Sioux were stunned by the same quickness and firepower of Gerbe in the semifinals.
Gerbe, a 5-foot-5 sparkplug who had scored three goals and one assist when the Eagles routed North Dakota 6-1 in the semifinal, wound up with five goals and three assists - eight points out of 10 scored by BC - to win the tournament's most outstanding player award, easily making up for not being named Hobey Baker Award winner on Friday.
That award went to the high-scoring Kevin Porter of Michigan, who led the nation in scoring with 33-29--62. That is, he WAS the nation's leading scorer until Notre Dame's well-drilled Fighting Irish dismantled Michigan 5-4 in overtime and shut down Porter with only one assist, ending a 33-30--63 season. Gerbe, meanwhile, came in 30-30--60, and two Frozen Four victories later, Gerbe skates off into history 35-32--67.
"He's a dynamic player," said Notre Dame coach Jeff Jackson. "I have a lot of respect for Kevin Porter, but if they named Hobey after this weekend, maybe there would have been a change of winners."
Gerbe said: "This trophy is the one that's important."
What also is important is that Michigan, the lone No. 1 regional seed and the No. 1 ranked team in the nation, and North Dakota, the WCHA runner-up, were both eliminated in the semifinals, and Boston College, which was fourth in Hockey East but ends up 25-11-8, wins the title over Notre Dame, a team that was fourth in the CCHA and ends up 27-16-4. Minnesota State-Mankato, the fourth-place finisher in the WCHA, was not among the six WCHA teams selected for the tournament.
If the WCHA wasn't involved in playing in the final game, the University of Denver received high marks from all as tournament host. The final drew 18,632, for a three-game total of 55,719 - fourth best in tournament history.
The game itself was scoreless for the first period, then Gerbe converted a Brian Gibbons pass from behind the net at 2:23 of the second period. Gerbe was at his best at 5:37 on a power play, when he was in the right circle and spotted the puck loose at the right edge of the net. As goaltender Jordan Pearce tried to cover, Gerbe took two quick steps and dived, poking the puck in for a 2-0 lead as he slid behind the goal. Joe Whitney drilled a screened 40-footer off Gerbe's pass to make it 3-0 on another power play.
Notre Dame countered when Kevin Deeth scored at 9:07, and then came the pivotal play of the game. Ian Cole had the puck on the left side and sent a hard pass across the goal-mouth for Kyle Lawson, who had stopped on the right side of the net. Lawson couldn't field the pass with his stick, so he put his heels together so his skates formed a "V" and blocked the puck, which hit his left skate, then glanced off his right skate, and when Lawson raised his right skate, the puck continued toward the goal line. In an amazing bit of intricacy, Lawson tried to then sweep the puck in the final few inches, but Boston College defenseman Tim Filangieri made one late stab and lifted Lawson's stick about an inch, for an instant, and the puck slid into the goal.
Even though Lawson made no kicking motion, and only moved his skates to try to block the puck, after a lengthy video replay, referee Todd Anderson from the WCHA waved off the goal. The explanation was that Lawson had made a kicking motion.
Thirty-five seconds later, Gerbe sent a neat pass out front and Ben Smith scored to make it 4-1.
"I didn't get a good look at the disallowed goal," said York. "But it would have made it 3-2, and instead we come right back and make it 4-1. That's a big turnaround."
Jackson acknowledged that the call "was a big turning point for us. We had something going right then. No question about it, it was the turning point in the game."
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