Box Score DE PERE - St. Norbert College reached the 20-win plateau with a 5-2 win over Milwaukee School of Engineering and compete a series sweep in a Northern Collegiate Hockey Association game at Kern Center.
The victory gives the No. 5-ranked Green Knights (20-3, 16-0 NCHA) the 22nd time with at least 20 wins in their last 25 seasons. St. Norbert also extended its school-record winning streak to 19 games heading into next weekend's series at No. 1-ranked Adrian College that will decide the NCHA regular-season championship.
St. Norbert took a 1-0 lead in the first period when
Max Brainin scored at 6:19 for his third goal of the series. The Green Knights would add to their lead when Mitchell Zamon scored his second goal of the season at 4:29 of the second period. The Raiders would counter with goals from Brendan Ferguson at 15:22 and Christian Sabin at 18:46 to level the score at 2-2.
The Green Knights swung momentum back in their favor in a big way, when
Peter Bates redirected a
Jack Thomas shot with the knob of his stick for a 3-2 lead with just 2.3 seconds left in the second period. Bates' goal was the 24th of the season, tying him for second on St. Norbert's season record list. The point was also Bates' 146th of his career, moving him into third place on St. Norbert's career scoring list.
St. Norbert converted a pair of power-play goals in the third period.
Peyton Frantti registered his 13th goal of the season with a marker at 3:11. The Green Knights then salted the game away with a power-play, extra-attacker goal by
Adam Stacho with 21.8 seconds remaining. It was Stacho's seventh goal of the season.
Stacho and Bates each had an assist to give them both two points and St. Norbert's only multi-goal games.
St. Norbert outshot MSOE 58-23, including a lopsided 21-3 in the third period.
Johnny Roberts made 21 saves for the Green Knights, and also picked up his first career assist on Stacho's empty-netter. George McBey was kept busy in a 53-save night for the Raiders.
The Green Knights were 2-for-7 on the power play, while MSOE did not have a power-play opportunity.
