Men's D4 Club Ice Hockey | 2/21/2023 1:23:00 PM
With a CHE Championship on the line, the RMU D4 Club Hockey Team faced off against CalU in a game to remember. It all started early in the 1st period when
Owen Romano put the Colonials up 1-0. Romano's goal was assisted by
Alexander Lytle and
Ryan Riffner. Later on in the period, the Colonials founds themselves up 2-0 after
Mitchell Klym and
Elias Weiland set up a
Zachary Connelly score. At the first intermission, RMU could taste history with only two periods left between them and their first ever CHE Championship.
RMU kept their foot on the gas going into the 2nd period, with a goal from
Tyler Antonellis less than a minute in. Unfortunately, CalU was able to get one back very quickly and the score was now 3-1. The pressure was on, but RMU proved they were up for the challenge. At about seven minutes into the 2nd period, RMU found the back of the net once again after
Chris Nemeth assisted on an
Elias Weiland score. This would put the Colonials up 4-1, but they weren't finished. Minutes later,
Carter Bossong and
Nathaniel Barr set up another RMU score as
Crawford Bosack made the score 5-1. The Colonials were rolling to end the 2nd period, and now all they had to do was defend their four goal lead for twenty more minutes.
The third period could not have went worse for RMU. CalU was determined to climb back into this game, and they did just that. They were able to score two goals after ten minutes, making the score 5-3. Things started to get extremely tense when the RMU lead was cut to just one goal with eight minutes left in the contest. With just a one goal lead now, RMU really needed to tighten up. They were able to up until the very late stages of this one, when disaster struck. CalU tied the game at 5-5 with only about a minute left. After leading by four goals at the start of the 3rd period, this game was now tied and overtime would commence.
The stakes could not be any higher as overtime begun. Whoever scored the next goal would bring a CHE Championship home for their respective team. After four unaswered goals from CalU, the momentum was admittedly in their favor. After a tense six minutes of back-and-forth play in overtime,
Ryan Riffner found himself with the puck. He skated around a CalU defender, deked out another, and buried the championship-sealing goal into the top right corner of CalU's goal. The Colonial bench cleared onto the ice to celebrate history. Your D4 Men's Club Hockey team was victorious, and they took home the hardware to prove it. After an incredible season, RMU could now celebrate the first CHE Championship in program history.
Check out the championship-winning goal and all the emotion here:
