St. Norbert claims Peters Cup with 4-0 win over UWSP

For the third consecutive and 10th year overall, St. Norbert claimed the NCHA playoff title and Peters Cup by downing UW-Stevens Point 4-0 in front of a sellout crowd at the Cornerstone Community Center.

The Green Knights opened the scoring at the 10:37 mark of the first period as forward Alain Joanette struck on the power play to stake the Green Knights the early 1-0 lead.

St. Norbert tallied twice more with the man advantage in the second period to run its lead to 3-0.  The first came 2:26 into the frame as Cody Keefer smoothly redirected a Johan Ryd pass past Pointers' netminder Brandon Jaeger, and the second at the 14:40 mark as Seth Soley beat Jaeger five-hole.

St. Norbert finished the night 3/5 on the power play, continuing what has been a torrid rate as of late.  In their last four outings the Green Knights are 11/19 with the extra skater, good for a 57.9% conversion rate.

"I think that's not so much a factor of what Stevens Point was or wasn't doing, but rather that what we did opened up those chances," said St. Norbert head coach Tim Coghlin.  "With something like the power play you coach it in black and white.  You can draw out the x's and o's but the players sort of play in a world of gray within that framework.  I thought they did a real good job and I thought we created some really good chances tonight."

Kyle Stroh rounded out the scoring early in the third period to make it 4-0 Green Knights, and freshman goaltender David Jacobson stopped all 21 shots he faced to earn his second consecutive and fourth shutout of the season as the Green Knights became the first team in history to not allow a goal in the Peters Cup Playoffs.

Photo: SNC Sports Information

"[Our defensive effort] is something we've been doing better as of late and I think if you look at the last few weeks you'll see that our defensive play has been good," Coghlin said.  "There are still some things we still noticed that we have to get cleaned up, but overall I thought it was a good effort."

The win moves St. Norbert to 17-5-5 on the year and advances it to the NCAA tournament for the tenth time in the past eleven years, though when and where it will play will not be known until Sunday night.

"We're not even going to worry about it," Coghlin said.  "There's a lot of ways this region can go so we're just going to wait for the call.  This tournament has what, eight AQ's and three at-large?  We talked about just winning our way in and were able to do that successfully, so we'll just see how it goes from here."

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