Junior right wing Billy Maday had a goal and an assist in the 5-2 loss at Miami.

Irish And Bowling Green Battle To A 4-4 Tie; Falcons Take Shoot Out, 1-0.

Nov. 29, 2009

Final Stats

Notre Dame, Ind. – The Notre Dame hockey team gave up 2-0 and 3-2 leads while Bowling Green surrendered a 4-3 edge in the third period as the Irish and Falcons battled to a 4-4 tie on Saturday night at the Joyce Center. Bowling Green picked up an extra point in the standings with a 1-0 shoot-out win.

Notre Dame was led by junior left wing Calle Ridderwall who recorded his first collegiate hat trick, scoring twice on the power play and senior Ryan Thang scored the tying goal in the third period. Sophomore Billy Maday had a hand in all four Irish goals, turning in the first four-point game of his career with four assists.

The Falcons spread the scoring around getting single goals from Jordan Samuels-Thomas, Ian Ruel, Tommy Dee and Marc Rodriguez in the tie. Samuels-Thomas would add the lone goal in the shoot-out for Bowling Green.

Notre Dame out shot Bowling Green, 37-25 in the game. Junior goaltender Nick Eno made 33 saves for the Falcons while junior Brad Phillips gave up all four Falcon goals while making 13 saves in 50:12. Freshman Mike Johnson finished out regulation, overtime and the shoot-out, making eight saves in 14:41.

The tie gives Notre Dame a 7-5-4 overall record and a 4-2-4-2 record in the CCHA, good for 18 points in the league standings. The Falcons are 2-10-2 overall and 2-6-2-2 in conference play, good for 10 points. The tie also extended Notre Dame’s unbeaten streak to 18 games (16-0-2) versus the Falcons since the start of the 2005-06 season.

“I thought we did a better job of managing the puck early. We did a good job controlling the puck coming out of our zone and through the neutral zone,” said head coach Jeff Jackson.

“As a result we had more offensive success instead of having to chase and play defense. Then in the second period we got a little loose with the puck and they capitalized. That’s been the nature of our team right now. We got tentative with the puck and all of a sudden they had a couple of odd-man rushes and scored a couple of goals and got back in the game.”

The Irish got off to a fast start in this one, building a 2-0 lead after one period on a pair of power-play goals by Ridderwall.

The first came at 7:53 off a nice tic-tac-toe passing play. Kevin Deeth moved the puck from the right boards to Maday at the left point. Maday slid the puck back to Ridderwall in the right circle and the junior rifled a shot past Eno for his eighth of the season and a 1-0 Notre Dame lead.

The Swedish left wing was back at it less than three minutes later, getting his second of the period at 10:10 when he jumped on the rebound of a Maday shot and fired it over Eno from the right side for his ninth goal of the year and sixth on the power play.

In the second period, Bowling Green came back, scoring twice in a 56-second span.

Samuels-Thomas cut the lead to 2-1 at 5:04 when he took a lead pass in the neutral zone from defenseman Andrew Krelove and carried it over the blue line before firing a shot from the top of the left circle over Phillips’ right shoulder for his team-best sixth goal of the year.

Ruel evened the score at the six-minute mark when he followed a shot by Tomas Petruska and jammed a rebound past Phillips for his first career goal to make it 2-2.

“Through the first period we had them and then they got a couple of goals in a five-minute period where we got sloppy,” said Ridderwall.

“At this level when you have a five-minute period where you don’t play as well as you can the puck is going to end up in your own net. I give them credit they capitalized on our mistakes and got back in the game.”

Ridderwall took it upon himself to put the Irish in front with his third goal, this one at even strength at 8:45 of the middle period for his 10th of the season.

Defenseman Eric Ringel fired a shot from the right point that Eno stopped. The rebound came right in front to Maday whose shot was stopped but Ridderwall was there to lift the rebound over the Bowling Green netminder to give the Irish a 3-2 lead.

“Getting a hat trick is a great feeling and its something that all forwards try to do,” said Ridderwall.

“I’m trying to be more of a goal scorer and to do it at a high level like Division I college hockey is something special.”

The Irish held on to the 3-2 advantage until the 3:36 mark of the third period when Dee fired a wrist shot from right side that beat Phillips for his fifth of the season with assists going to Samuels-Thomas and David Solway to make it 3-3.

The Falcons would take the lead at 9:53 when defenseman Kyle Page caught the Irish at the BG blue line and moved the puck with Rodriquez on a 2-on-1 into the Irish zone. Rodriguez fired a wrist shot from the slot over Phillips shoulder and under the cross bar for his second of the season and a 4-3 lead.

Phillips was replaced in goal with 9:42 remaining by Johnson just as the Irish were going on their fifth power play of the night.

They would get the equalizer with their third power-play goal of the game when Thang deflected a Brett Blatchford pass in the slot behind Eno for his third goal of the year and a 4-4 game. For the night, Notre Dame was 3-for-6 on the power play.

“Our special teams did a great job tonight and I thought we were much better than last night,” said Jackson.

“We’ve been in this situation before where we won a sloppy game and the next night play better and lose the game.”

Neither team would get on the board in regulation or overtime, setting up the shoot-out. The Falcons shot first and Samuels-Thomas got the first chance and capitalized, sliding the puck through Johnson’s pads for the only goal. Eno stopped Maday, Ben Ryan and Thang on Notre Dame’s chances while Johnson stopped Rodriquez and Page on their chances.

This was the fifth overtime game of the year for the Irish and the fourth to go to a shoot-out. They are 1-0-4 in overtime and 2-2 on the year in the shoot-out.

Notre Dame returns to action next weekend when the Irish travel to Oxford, Ohio for a pair of games with the Miami RedHawks on Dec. 4-5. Friday’s game has a 7:35 p.m. start while Saturday’s game goes at 7:05 p.m.

** IRISH NOTES **

** Calle Ridderwall’s hat trick was the first by a Notre Dame player since January 5, 2007 versus Robert Morris. Billy Maday’s four-assist game was the first by an Irish player since March 9, 2007 when Erik Condra `09 had four versus Alaska in the CCHA playoffs. The last Notre Dame player to have four points in a game was defenseman Ian Cole who had two goals and two assists versus Northern Michigan on Feb. 13, 2009.

GAME SUMMARY                           1     2     3   OT  -  FBowling Green (2-10-2/2-6-2-2)         0     2     2    0  -  4#14/#13 Notre Dame (7-5-4/4-2-4-2)     2     1     1    0  -  4

Scoring

First Period: ND: Calle Ridderwall 8 (Billy Maday, Kevin Deeth), PPG, 7:53; ND: Ridderwall 9 (Maday, Brett Blatchford), PPG, 10:10.

Penalties: BGSU: 4 for 8 minutes; ND: 6 for 12 minutes.

Second Period: BGSU: Jordan Samuels-Thomas 6 (Andrew Krelove), 5:05; BGSU: Ian Ruel 1 (Tomas Petruska, Brian Moore), 6:00; ND: Ridderwall 10 (Maday, Eric Ringel), 8:45.

Penalties: BGSU: 2 for 4 minutes; ND: 0 for 0 minutes.

Third Period: BGSU: Tommy Dee 5 (Samuels-Thomas, David Solway), 3:38; BGSU: Marc Rodriguez 2 (Kyle Page), 9:53; ND: Ryan Thang 3 (Blatchford, Maday), PPG, 11:06.

Penalties: BGSU: 2 for 4 minutes; ND: 2 for 4 minutes.

Overtime: No Scoring.

Penalties: BGSU: 3 for 6 minutes; ND: 2 for 4 minutes.

Shootout:  Bowling Green wins shootout, 1-0.           BGSU:  Jordan Samuels-Thomas (goal); ND: Billy Maday (save).           BGSU:  Marc Rodriguez (save); ND: Ben Ryan (save).           BGSU:  Kyle Page (save); ND: Ryan Thang (save).
Shots On Goal:Bowling Green 6 - 5 - 12 - 2 - 25Notre Dame 11 - 14 - 9 - 3 - 37
Goaltender Saves:BGSU - Nick Eno (65:00) 9 - 13 - 8 - 3 - 33ND - Brad Phillips (50:12) 6 - 3 - 4 - x - 13 Mike Johnson (14:41) x - x - 6 - 2 - 8
Power Plays:BGSU: 0 for 5ND: 3 for 6
Attendance: 2,544