Concordia Coborns Rally For Dramatic OT Win

WINONA, Minn. (2/16/13)—Concordia freshman Tucker Coborn single-handedly rescued the Cobbers' MIAC regular-season title hopes as he scored a natural hat trick in the third period to help CC overcome a three-goal deficit and beat St. Mary's 4-3 in overtime.

In the end Coborn's heroics wouldn't be enough for Concordia to win the title but the two points gained from the win pushed the Cobbers into a tie for third place in the final league standings. CC owns the tiebreaker with fellow third-place finisher Gustavus and earns the No.3 seed for the upcoming conference tournament.

The third-place finish for Concordia marks the second time in the last three years that CC has placed third in the league standings. The Cobbers ended the regular season with 10 league wins which is the most since the 2000-01 season. Concordia will now enter the postseason with a 13-11-1 overall record.

For all practical purposes it looked like Concordia would suffer through the hangover of having clinched a playoff spot on Friday night. The Cobbers trailed 3-0 heading into the third period and were outshot 30-14 in the first 40 minutes of play. That's when Coborn decided to put the Cobbers on his back and got the team into overtime.

Coborn started his own one-man rally just 42-seconds into the third period when he scored a short-handed goal. His sixth tally of the year was assisted by Caleb Suderman and Dan Hrabowych. Coborn decided to post the special teams double when he scored a power-play goal at 5:41. Hrabowych picked up his second helper of the afternoon and Charlie Aus was credtited with the other assist on the play.

Coborn decided the fans needed some excitement for the day and waited until the final five minutes of play to complete the natural hat trick. He once again struck on the power play after CC was given the man-advantage with 5:51 left to play. Coborn's eighth goal of the year was once again assisted by Suderman and Hrabowych.

Coborn now has eight goals and nine assists in his freshman season while Hrabowych earned three assists for the game and is now tied for the team lead at 13.

Coborn then made way for fellow freshman, and team leading scorer, Jordie Bancroft to get the game winner. Bancroft scored on the Cobbers' only shot of overtime with less than one minute to play in the five-minute extra period. He notched his 12^th goal of the season at 4:11 with Aus setting up the winner. With the golden nugget, Bancroft upped his season point tally to 12 goals and 10 assists for 22 points.

St. Mary's (8-16-1/6-9-1 MIAC) outshot Concordia 44-31 for the game but was unable to score for the final 27:54 of the game.

Cobber goalie Chris Neamonitis stopped the final 17 shots he faced and made 41 saves to pick up his career-best 13^th win of the season. St. Mary's goalie Jason Horstman made 27 saves.

Concordia will now travel to St. Cloud to play St. John's in the semifinals of the MIAC Tournament on Saturday, 23. The time of the game has yet to be determined.