By Ryan Stieg
MENDOTA HEIGHTS, Minn. — The St. Thomas men’s hockey team is now just one win away from a CCHA Championship.
During the winter holiday break, it appeared as if the Tommies wouldn’t even earn home ice in the first round of the playoffs. However, UST caught fire in 2025 and thanks to a 3-1 victory over Bowling Green Saturday, it’ll play for the Mason Cup in Mankato next Friday against top-seeded Minnesota State.
However, the Falcons didn’t make it easy for the Tommies. The game was tied 1-1 going into the third period and it was a one-goal game with just over a minute in regulation before UST got the empty netter to clinch it.
“We knew it was going to be a tight game,” UST head coach Rico Blasi said. “I thought the first period went back and forth. I thought both goaltenders made some huge saves. Second period, we were able to score. They pushed back and we scored. Typical CCHA battle. Tied going into the third period, I don’t know what the record is going in the third period in this league, but I’m pretty sure teams are tied, or up by one, or down by one every single game. It was nothing new for us. We knew we had to come out and play hard in the third. Great play by (Lucas) Wahlin to (Liam) Malmquist and then we held them off at the end.”
For BG head coach Dennis Williams, the outcome was tough to take as the Falcons went toe-to-toe with UST the entire game.
“It was a pretty close game,” he said. “I thought the first period, we had a hard time getting into a rhythm. I thought as the game got on, we got better. It’s a tough one. We have a good group of men in there. Like anybody at this year when you don’t get to move on, seniors and grad students are pretty emotional, and they put a lot of time and effort in. They’ve been great all season and we just didn’t find that second goal when they scored that one in the neutral zone to go up 2-1. We started playing a little desperate hockey and I thought we had them on their heels, but at the end of the day, good goalie, good coach and good team. In a one game series, they were probably the better team tonight.”
When asked about his thoughts on the season overall, Williams talked about the positives but reiterated that the loss was difficult.
“Right now, for our guys, just like coaches, it takes us a little bit to really sit down and reflect on the year,” he said. “At the end of the day, we had a lot more positives than negatives throughout the year with our group. I think what makes it worse is that you were that close. It’d be one thing if they beat us 8-0, then we’d be like ‘Hey, we didn’t even deserve to be in the game.’ But when it’s a tie game going into the third and you’re one shot away, if you had told me at the beginning of the year that we got to play a 20-minute period to go to the CCHA finals, I probably would’ve shook your hand and took it. Our guys did a great job putting themselves in a really good position and it came down to 20 minutes and we lost a 20-minute hockey game.”
The first period was evenly played as both teams did a good job of shutting down passing lanes and keeping the puck out of their respective zones. UST had the two best scoring chances in the period with the first one coming at the 2:59 mark, but Cooper Gay’s shot rang off the post. The other good opportunity came with 13:43 remaining in the period as Tommies forward Jake Braccini raced into the Falcons zone, but was denied by BG goalie Christian Stoever.
Things went differently in the second period as both teams started to generate some offense. Gay got his second golden chance with about 17 minutes remaining as he got a shot off in the low slot that trickled through Stoever’s five hole, but the puck was cleared out just before it crossed the goal line. Later at the 5:40 mark, the Tommies finally got on the scoreboard as Casy Laylin beat Stoever blocker-side during a rush to make it 1-0. The Tommies almost struck again with 3:30 left in the period, but Stoever made a sprawling save to the left post to rob UST’s Cole Miller.
After putting some pressure on Tommies goalie Jake Sibell in the closing minutes of the period, the Falcons tied things up when captain Ethan Scardina snapped a shot from the slot into the back of the net to tie things up at 1-1 going into the third period.
At 7:47 in the third, Malmquist broke the tie for the Tommies. After getting a nice feed from Wahlin, Malmquist raced into the Falcons zone and fired a shot past Stoever to make it 2-1. That was Malmquist’s 19 goal of the season and with Wahlin getting the assist, he picked up his fortieth point of the year. This is the first time UST has had two 40-point scorers in a season.
“We’ve seen those guys a lot this year and we knew it was going to be a physical game,” Malmquist said. “We knew they were going to be fast and want it just as much as us. Thankfully, we came out on top tonight, and we’ll be moving on to next week.”
A finalist for CCHA Forward of the Year along with Wahlin, Malmquist is ecstatic that he’s so close to ending his time with the Tommies with a conference title.
“I don’t like to talk about the past too much, but I haven’t made it past the quarterfinals throughout my college career,” he said. “It doesn’t happen often and I’m just living in the moment.”
With Stoever pulled for the extra attacker in the closing minutes, the Tommies’ committed what could’ve been a costly slashing penalty. Instead, Gay broke free down the middle of the ice to score a shorthanded, empty net goal to nail down the victory. Gay is now tied with Malmquist for the team lead in goals.
“I thought we did a really good job defensively,” Blasi said. “They’re really hard to play against because they’re very aggressive and they do a really good job in the offensive zone. They try to seam you, and they go low to high a lot. They caught us on the goal with three guys high. So, we made a little bit of an adjustment going into the third period, but our guys blocked a lot of shots and put sticks in the lanes. In the 6 on 5, I thought we were doing a really good job, but then we had to kill a penalty, and it was 6 on 4, and I thought our guys did an unbelievable job of just staying patient and keeping them to the outside. Sibes had to make a save and we got a lucky bounce on the empty netter. But I’m really proud of the guys and I can’t say enough of our team and the way they battle, not just in games, but every day in practice. We have a love affair in our locker room. We do a lot of things for each other. I’m really proud of them.”