Denver wins a memorable game, will face Maryland on Championship Monday.
In what is sure to go down as a NCAA classic, the Denver Pioneers defeated the Notre Dame Fighting Irish 11-10 in overtime and will advance to Championship Monday for the National Championship.
Wesley Berg scored three times including the game winner just 2:03 into overtime. “I was thankful that the game is over”, said Berg. When you’re up by that much, you’re watching the clock and you’re counting down the seconds. Once we got into overtime, we just wanted to get the game finished as fast as we could and it was a huge relief scoring.
Berg’s other goal is a Sportscenter highlight. With 4:23 to go in regulation, Berg threw an over the shoulder-behind the back shot that bounced between the goaltenders legs and landed under the crossbar to give Denver a 10-6 lead. But this game was far from over. Notre Dame would score four straight, three by Sergio Perkovic (5 total), and the tying goal by Nick Ossello with only nine seconds left.
“Sergio is playing out there”, said Ossello and a lot of guys keying on Sergio and Kav and Doyle with a short stick, which is a situation that I know we can take advantage of very consistently. And they did a good job setting me up.
“I didn’t think we played particularly well in certain points of the game”, said Coach Corrigan. But we did what we needed to do to be in a one‑play game in the end. And we didn’t make that play.
When the overtime started the Irish won the draw and looked to end it early with Matt Kavanagh taking a quick shot. “Matt Kavanagh has been on our team for three years and won a bunch of games for us in exactly that kind of situation”, said Coach Corrigan. It’s easy to take a snapshot and say with hindsight, would you want a timeout, of course, the ball got taken away. On odds, right now, Kav is probably 12 and 1 in that situation. So I’ll take Kav.
For Denver the win sends them to the title game for the first time in the schools history. Final Four appearances in 2011, 2013, 2014 ended early for the Pioneers, but they were not going to be denied.
“It’s amazing for the program to get past that step”, said LaPlante. We don’t want to stop there. It’s been our ultimate goal to win the National Championship since we got to school in September. We just want to work for that on Monday and we have one game to do it.
Berg echoed the same and added, “It’s another step forward. We haven’t been here yet but the most important thing is winning the next one and winning it all. That’s what we’re here for.”
Berg was asked to explain his Sportscenter top 10 highlight goal. “When we were ‑‑ me and Pace were kind of thinking, I could tell he was hesitant for throwing it. I was a little open. I was hesitant getting open and didn’t throw it, ended up throwing it, and it was kind of a scramble in front. I lost my balance there and I thought just try to get it on net. I saw the goalie out of position and just did a reverse backhand between his legs and fortunately it went in”.
A laid back Coach Tierney said, “It’s a great event, and we are just proud to be a part of it. I have to start with Notre Dame. There’s nobody that plays defense out there like Notre Dame and they made it really difficult for us. And just it’s always a war. It’s always a one‑goal game. We thought we were up four with four minutes left, maybe it wouldn’t be, but the heart and the courage, especially from Ossello and Perkovic, showed that the game was really special. We feel blessed and thankful to be moving on to Monday”.
As much as this game was somewhat defensive in the first 45 minutes (10 goals combined), the offense woke up on both sides in the final 15 minutes scoring a combined 10 goals.
After seeing the Irish score four straight to tie the game, Denver coaches and players had to be thinking, here we go again. Where they worried?? “Sure”, Said Coach Tierney. Especially at the end like that when you’re giving up four in four minutes after giving up six in 56 minutes, you kind of bewilder a little bit. I think the guys let the emotion of the moment get a little bit to them.
Tierney continued saying, “Every game all season long we try to get the guys, whether we’re ahead, whether we’re behind like last week down 7‑1, we try to get the guys to say, look, it’s 0‑0. The only thing that matters is the next goal. The only difference is when you’re in overtime, that’s really the only thing that matters”.
Coach Tierney is no stranger to the title game. He has been here eight times winning six of them (92, 94, 96, 97, 98, 2001).
In 2001 his Princeton Tigers defeated Syracuse 10-9 in overtime. Now being back in the finals, Coach Tierney was asked about similarities between Princeton in 2001 and the Denver team of 2015.
“Similarities, I’ve got my son Trevor at my side, and in that one he was in the goal. That’s very special. That one was a little different. We had lost, we got beat by Syracuse pretty handily in the regular season at the Dome and came back and beat them in the final. Look, all these things are, when you get to the Final Four, there’s always a little bit of luck. And that one was an overtime win just like this one, very similar. We had a lead, gave up a lead and scored in overtime. So, again, it’s not about me and Princeton or me and Denver. It’s about this group of young people that are striving to reach to top the peak”
Notre Dame Leaders:
Perkovic (5G), Ossello (2G), Corrigan (1G/2A)
Denver Leaders:
Berg (3G), Miller (2G/1A), Pace (2G/2A)
#4 Denver will face #6 Maryland who held off a late Johns Hopkins push for a 12-11 victory.
Denver will be the designated home team due to higher ranking. Game time 1pm on ESPN2
