The Tampa Bay Times, Daniel Wallace / AP PhotoFROZEN FOUR- Buoyed by a 2-goal performance from Junior Steven Whitney and Junior goaltender Parker Milner turning aside 27 of 28 shots faced, the Boston College Eagles won the men's NCAA Hockey title in Tampa, FL on Saturday night, defeating the Ferris State Bulldogs by a 4-1 final in a game that was much closer than the final score would indicate.
For the small university located in western Michigan, this was their first trip to the Frozen Four in school history- let alone NCAA final- advancing past another underdog making their 1st ever Frozen Four appearance, the Union Dutchmen out of Schenectady, NY.
In Saturday's game, the Eagles got off to a quick 1-0 lead just over 3 minutes into the game thanks to a Whitney tally before Ferris State's Garret Thompson tied the contest up at 1-1 two minutes later. Senior Paul Carey would then put Boston College back on top with a power play goal midway through the second.
Ferris State would launch a spirited counterattack in the second, matching the Eagles seemingly shot for shot. Milner turned aside all 15 shots faced in the 2nd stanza while Ferris State goalie Taylor Nelson stopped 14 shots he faced from Boston College.
Although the Bulldogs came precariously close to tying the contest a couple times in the 3rd, Boston College Freshman Johnny Gaudreau broke the contest open with an insurance goal with less than 5 minutes remaining in the contest to make it 3-1. After Ferris State pulled Nelson for an extra attacker, but Whitney would get the empty-netter with just under 2 minutes left in the contest to make it a 4-1 final.
The Men's Hockey title is the Eagle's 5th altogether- four of them coming during head coach Jerry York's tenure- and their 3rd championship since 2008. The Eagles finish the season with a 19-game winning streak and a 33-10-1 record overall.
OTHER NCAA HOCKEY NEWS- University of Minnesota-Duluth senior Jack Connolly was announced as the 2012 Hobey Baker Award winner over the weekend. The 5ft 8 center from last year's NCAA Men's Hockey champions is a Duluth, MN native and is the 5th Hobey Baker winner from UM-D. The Hobey Baker is given out each year to the best men's college hockey player.
Duane Burleson- AP photo
MLB- The Detroit Tigers were able to get a measure of revenge against Beantown on behalf of Ferris State by completing a 3-game sweep of the Boston Red Sox on Sunday afternoon.
On Saturday, the Tigers basically had batting practice off of Josh Beckett, with Beckett tying a career-worst 5 HR's allowed. Miguel Cabrera and Prince Fielder each had two home runs while Alex Avila hit a solo homer in a 10-0 rout of the Red Sox.
Sunday's game was no less a hot mess, although despite Clay Buccholz giving up an early 4 runs, a rough start by Max Scherzer helped Boston out. Buccholz lasted 4 innings, allowing 8 hits and 7 runs, while Scherzer gave up just as many runs and hits in 2 and ⅔ innings of work.
Although we're only 3 games into the regular season right now, those who cautioned against letting Papelbon depart thru free agency are probably saying 'I told you so' right now as Boston had the chance to close out the game twice and blew each opportunity, starting with Alfredo Aceves giving up a game-tying 3-run homer to Miguel Cabrera to tie things up at 10-10.
Then, after the Red Sox re-took the lead in the 11th on RBI singles from Nick Punto and Dustin Pedroia to make it 12-10, DH Delmon Young made it a 1-run game with a sac-fly off of Mark Melancon after Miguel Cabrera had singled and advanced to 3rd on a wild pitch. With two outs and Alex Avila down to his last strike, the Tiger's catcher homered to deep right for the walkoff 13-12 win.
Currently, the only saving grace for Boston at the moment is that the Yankees were swept by Tampa Bay in a weekend series down in Florida- that's marginally worse for the Yankees because it happened against an AL East opponent and could serve as a tiebreaker and work to the Yankees' disadvantage if the AL East race came down to the wire like it did last season.
The Red Sox take their 0-3 record north of the border to take on the Blue Jays at the Rogers Centre on Monday afternoon in Toronto's home opener. Felix Doubront will get the start for Boston while Henderson Alvarez gets the start for the Jays. This will be Toronto's home opener after wrapping up a 2-1 series in Cleveland. The game is scheduled to get underway at 7:07 ET and will be televised on NESN and Rogers Sports Net.
NHL- The regular season wrapped up at TD Garden on Saturday with the Bruins coming into the finale clinching the #2 spot in the Eastern Conference and the Buffalo Sabres on the outside looking in. The table was set- it was just a matter of who sat where.
After a scoreless first, The Bruins got off to the 1-0 lead with a Tyler Segiun goal less than 5 minutes into the 2nd. Buffalo's Brad Boyes managed to knot the contest up at 1-1 with 4:15 to go in the first period.
The Sabres would go on the power play late in the second that would carry over into the 3rd, but seemed to offer the Bruins more shorthanded scoring chances than it did Buffalo with the man advantage- but Jhonas Enroth stopped both shorthanded attempts for Buffalo. Buffalo would then break the deadlock thanks to goals by Boyes and Jason Pominville less than two minutes apart about midway through the 3rd.
With just a hair over 10 minutes to go in regulation, the B's managed to close the gap within 1 thanks to a power play goal by Tyler Seguin, making it a 3-2 Buffalo lead. Marchand would get the game-tying goal two and a half minutes later and the final regular season contest at the Garden would head to OT.
After a scoreless OT, the contest headed to a shootout where Patrice Bergeron was the only shooter between the two teams to get one past the goaltender, giving Boston the 4-3 win and closing the book on the season for Buffalo.
Tim Thomas stopped 25 of 28 shots faced while Enroth turned aside 37 of 40 shots faced on Saturday. The Sabres went 0-1 on the power play while Boston went 1-4, getting their first power play goal since last Sunday's 2-1 win against the NY Rangers in Madison Square Garden.
The Bruins will be idle until Thursday when they take on the #7 seed Washington Capitals. The game is scheduled to get underway from the Garden at 7:30 ET and will be televised on the NBC Sports Channel and CBC.
ELSEWHERE IN THE NHL- Even though the Western Conference playoff picture wasn't as crowded as it was just a week ago, the regular-season finale between the Los Angeles Kings and San Jose Sharks put a bow on the NHL season in pretty dramatic fashion.
Calgary, Dallas and Colorado pretty much faded away in the final week while the Kings, Sharks and Coyotes were separated by three points or less coming down the home stretch. In the silicon valley on Saturday night, the Kings got off to a 1-0 lead before scoring in the closing seconds of the 2nd period to make it 2-0.
San Jose's Dan Boyle would put the Sharks on the board less than a minute into the 3rd before Patrick marleau tied the contest up at 2-2 on a San Jose power play. The game headed to overtime with each team getting a point, but Boyle would once again bury the puck past LA's Jonathan Quick to give the Sharks the 3-2 OT win.
The Sharks win, coupled with the Coyotes regulation win over Minnesota earlier Saturday night, knocks LA down to the #8 seed, where they'll take on the President's Cup-winning Vancouver Canucks this year. San Jose's OT win gets them a rendezvous with the #2 seed in the Western Conference, the St Louis Blue. While only two points ahead of LA and 1 point ahead of the Sharks, Phoenix has clinched the #3 spot on the Western Conference and will take on Chicago.
At the conclusion of the final regular season game this week, the NHL posted the schedule for the first round of the 2012 playoffs on their website.
NBA- Wow! This was so much better than last month's showing against the 76ers. Seems as though every time the Celtics have had a chance to take 1st place over the Philadelphia 76ers during this abbreviated season, they've always managed to fold- to the best of my knowledge, it's happened at least twice in this abbreviated season.
However, it did NOT happen on Sunday as Kevin Garnett had 20 points and Rajon Ronjo had 15 assists on Sunday night's game at the Garden in a 103-79 thumping of Philly. Avery Bradley and Brandon Bradley started Sunday's game and each of them had 18 points while Ray Allen came off the bench for 10 points.
Sunday's loss puts Philly in a tie with the New York Knicks for 2nd place in the Atlantic conference, with the Celtics having a 3-game cushion in the conference. The C's home record improves to 20-9 on the season as well.
The Celtic's next game will take place on Tuesday night when they travel to south Florida to take on the Miami Heat. The game will be televised on ESPN and tips off at 7PM ET.
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