Tonight Miami's coach Enrico Blasi will undoubtedly wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, having nightmares about Jerry York and the Boston College Eagles. The RedHawks once again found themselves matched against BC in the NCAA Tournament ... for the fourth time in five seasons, to be precise. And for the fourth straight time, the Eagles found a way to end the RedHawks' National Title hopes.
The Eagles got on the board late in the first period on a power play goal from Ben Smith. Both teams skated about even for the first period, so the first goal was a huge boost for the Eagles. Smith's goal also significant as it snapped an 0-for-11 Eagles' NCAA Tournament drought on the man advantage.
In the second period, the Eagles dominated play, using their speed to create odd man rushes and several opportunities. Jimmy Hayes and Joe Whitney scored in the period and BC took a 3-0 lead into the third period. After Whitney made the score 3-0, Blasi pulled starting goalie Conor Knapp - who looked uneasy all game - in favor of Cody Reichard.
In the third period, Miami cut the lead to 2 on a goal just 5:19 into the third period. Muse really had no shot at the puck. The momentum seemingly shifted at that point, as Reichard was keeping Miami in the game with some tremendous saves. However, that tally would be all the scoring for Miami in this one, as the Eagles would go on to score 4 unanswered goals. At 10:10 of the third period, Cam Atkinson pushed BC's lead to 4-1. Freshman defenseman Patch Alber made it 5-1 on his first collegiate goal of his career. Paul Carey made it a five goal lead and Ben Smith scored his second of the game to make the lead 7-1.
Much had been made of Miami's defense going into this game, but it was the Eagles defense that arguably had their best performance of the year. Muse didn't have to make a ton of stops but when he did, he came up huge.
The RedHawks fall to 0-5 all-time against BC under coach Enrico Blasi, while John Muse maintains his perfect 7-0 record in the NCAA Tournament.
In the first semifinal, Wisconsin steamrolled RIT 8-1 in a game that was never close. Wisconsin drew first blood less than 2 minutes into the first period and never looked back.
The Eagles face the Wisconsin Badgers in the National Championship game on Saturday night. The game will be aired on ESPN starting at 7 PM ET. The Badgers and Eagles last played on October 10, 2008 in the Eagles' home opener (and their banner raising night for their 2008 National Championship). BC won 5-4.
Go Eagles!