Season Stops In St. Peter

ST. PETER, Minn. (3/02/13)—Concordia's MIAC playoff title hopes lasted for 20 minutes until No.2-ranked Gustavus scored a pair of second-period goals and pulled away to gain a 4-1 win.

The Cobbers skated back-and-forth with the unbeaten Gusties for the first 28 minutes before giving up the game-deciding goals. Concordia finishes its season with a second straight trip to the conference championship game and ends the year 13-8-5. Gustavus earns the league's automatic berth into the NCAA Tournament and enters the national playoffs with a 26-0-1 record.

Concordia came out in the first period and had the better of the play throughout the opening 20 minutes. The Cobbers were able to pounce on loose pucks, send the puck deep and use their forecheck to create chances on the Gustie goal. The Cobbers used this game plan to draw first blood when Madison Gendreau poked home a rebound at 16:44. Anna Westmark was credited with the only assist on the play as the CC forwards were able to keep the puck in the GAC zone to set up the game's first goal.

Perhaps the biggest goal of the game came only 1:11 when Gustavus stopped the Cobber momentum cold with a rebound tally at 17:55. Concordia was unable to use the one-goal lead to apply pressure to Gustavus and the Gusties gained energy from the game-tying score.

The second period was completely different as the Cobbers were unable to get to looses pucks and spent most of the period trying to get into the neutral zone. Concordia also had to kill off a pair of power plays – one of which led to the eventual game-winning goal. Gustavus scored the third goal of the game at 8:22 of the second period and then added the back breaker at 16:41.

The teams skated up and down the ice in the third period with the Gusties willing to hold the Cobbers away from the net and not allow any quality scoring chances. Concordia had a pair of opportunities to change the game, and get within one, but were never able to get the important second goal.

Concordia went 0-for-2 on the power play in the game while the Gusties were 1-for-5 but the one goal wound up being the game-winning goal.

Bekah Wright and Abby Taffe led the CC offense as both players had a team-high four shots in the game.

Cobber goalie Madison Denny stopped 44 shots in the game while Gustavus netminder Lindsey Hibbard made 16 saves.