April 16, 2005
Texas Arlington Remains Undefeated
Mavericks need overtime to defeat RIT
The University of Texas at Arlington came to Colorado with something to prove. Despite finishing the regular season undefeated and winning the SCHL Division I Championship, the Mavericks remained a bit of a mystery having not played any interregional games this season and no one knew how they would fair at the National Championship Tournament against the top teams in the country.
The Mavericks, a third seed from the elimination rounds, survived their first test winning all three games in Pool B play. They faced another stiff test when they took the floor in the second round of elimination play and faced off against Rochester IT, a sixth seed, for the second time in as many games.
In the final game of pool play, the Mavericks defeated the Tigers by a 6-1 score, but the Tigers were not ready to concede defeat for the second time forcing Texas-Arlington to overtime to decide which team would advance into the Elite Eight.
Rochester, who defeated 11th seeded Michigan by an 8-3 score Friday evening in the first round of elimination play, held a 4-2 lead midway through the third period on goals from John Nowak (3) and Mark McCreary, however Jason McGee?s third goal of the game, on the power play, brought the Mavericks within a goal at 4-3 with 4:22 remaining, before Ryan Cantrell tied the game at 4-4 with just 0:34 remaining in the third with Texas-Arlington goaltender Dustin Manko (10 saves) pulled for an extra attacker and send the game into overtime.
Despite having a ten second power play at the beginning of overtime the game remained tied until David Kestenbaum scored off a pass from Cantrell 5:18 into the extra session to advance UT-Arlington into the Elite Eight.
Texas-Arlington held a final shots advantage of 44 to 14 in the game including a 6-0 advantage in the overtime session. Brett Campbell made 39 saves for the Tigers in defeat.
UT-Arlington will face-off against 2nd seeded Michigan State in the Elite Eight Saturday evening with an 8:45 PM scheduled game time. Rochester IT finishes their season with an overall record of 22-8-1.