Oct. 17, 2000
NOTRE DAME, Ind. – Junior center Connor Dunlop fired the rebound of a Ryan Dolder shot over Wayne State goaltender Brett Leone at 2:31 of overtime to give the Notre Dame Fighting Irish a hard-fought, 2-1 win at the Joyce Center Tuesday night.
Dolder (Hutchinson, Minn.) picked up a loose puck in the Wayne State end and fired a low shot that Leone was able to get his pads on. Dunlop (St. Louis, Mo.), who joined the play late as Notre Dame was changing lines, raced down the slot and fired home the game winner over the sprawled Leone. The goal was Dunlop’s second of the young season.
Dolder led the Irish with two points in the game as he also set up ND’s first goal of the night.
The win gives Notre Dame a two-game unbeaten streak and improves the Irish to 1-2-1 on the campaign. Wayne State, in just its second season of Division I play, falls to 0-3-0 with the loss.
Notre Dame, playing its first of five consecutive home game, had plenty of chances early in the game to put this one away, but scored just one goal in the first period.
Freshman Rob Globke (West Bloomfield, Mich.) got his second goal of the season with assists to David Inman (Jr., Toronto, Ont.) and Dolder.
“We had plenty of chances early,” said head coach Dave Poulin after the game. “We need to bear down and put teams away. We should have scored a few more in the first, but we didn’t. That allowed them to stay in the game and as the game goes on their confidence builds.”
Poulin added, “Wayne State worked hard, but you expect that from a Bill Wilkinson-coached team. They deserved better tonight.”
One reason Wayne State did not take a win back to Detroit was the stellar goaltending of junior Jeremiah Kimento (Palos Hills, Ill.). For the second game in a row, Kimento kept the Irish in the game coming up with big saves late in the contest.
On the night, the junior puckstopper kicked out 24 of 25 Wayne State shots to improve his record to 1-0-1 on the season.
“I thought our goaltender played well tonight,” remarked Poulin. “He did a great job keeping us in the game.”
Kimento had a shutout going until the 10:01 mark of the third period when Wayne State’s Daniel Rafner pounced on a loose in the slot and fired the puck through a screen to beat the 5-11, 190-pounder.
The score stayed tied at one until Dunlop sent the 1,146 fans at the Joyce Center home with the first win of the year for the Irish.
In the game, the Irish outshot Wayne State by a 33-25 margin. WSU’s Leone, making the first start of his collegiate career, kicked out 32 shots in the loss.
A telling stat for the Irish came on the power play where they were 0-for-12 in the game to go to one-for-32 on the season for a 3.1% conversion rate.
“I thought we created lots of chances tonight, but we couldn’t score,” said Poulin, now in his sixth season guiding the Irish. ” We’ll continue to work on it. We were sharp in practice, but it didn’t come through in the game.”
Notre Dame continues its five-game homestand this weekend when the Irish play host to the Northeastern Huskies for games on Friday and Saturday, October 20-21. Face-off both nights is at 7:05 p.m. Northeastern comes to the Joyce Center with a record of 1-0-0 as the Huskies opened the season with a 4-3 overtime win versus St. Lawrence last weekend.
SUMMARY:
Wayne State (0-3-0) 0 0 1 0 – 1 Notre Dame (1-2-1) 1 0 0 1 – 2
First Period: ND: Rob Globke – 2 (David Inman, Ryan Dolder) 16:53.
Second Period: No Scoring.
Third Period: WSU: Daniel Rafner – 1 (unassisted) 10:01.
Overtime: ND: Connor Dunlop – 2 (Dolder) 2:31.
Penalties: Wayne State: 12 for 24 minutes
Notre Dame: 8 for 16 minutes
Power Plays:
Wayne State: 0-8
Notre Dame: 0-12
Shots On Goal
Wayne State 11 – 6 – 7 – 1 – 25
Notre Dame 14 -12- 6 – 2 – 34
Goaltender Saves:
Wayne State: Brett Leone (62:31) 13 – 12 – 6 – 1 – 32
Notre Dame: Jeremiah Kimento (62:31) 11 – 6 – 6 – 1 – 24
Attendance: 1,146