Gophers hand North Dakota its first loss of season

GRAND FORKS Bennett Zmolek walked into the postgame press conference Saturday night He answered questions from the assembled media for a minimal minutes A grimace never left his face A - loss to your biggest rival at home will do that Minnesota broke a - tie early in the third period with a long-range shot from seventh defenseman Max Rud then the Fighting Hawks unraveled the rest of the way en road to their first loss of the season We weren t good enough announced Zmolek UND s captain We didn t play to our standard Bottom line we had minutes to win a meeting After Rud s first collegiate goal Leo Gruba sniped one as a power play expired Brody Lamb scored on an odd-man rush as UND pressed for offense and L J Mooney iced it with an empty-netter The rivalry series ended in usual fashion a split UND and Minnesota have split their last four series There s only been one sweep in the last North Dakota-Minnesota series Minnesota played really good tonight UND defenseman Abram Wiebe revealed I thought they deserved the win I thought they did a great job in the neutral zone kind of clogging it for us But something I thought we didn t do was just get pucks in deep I thought we overhandled pucks a little bit not hitting the tape We have to learn from our mistakes this weekend UND will journey to Clarkson University in Potsdam N Y next weekend with a - record The Fighting Hawks will be coming off their first setback of the season They cruised through their first three games piling up goals and wins They scored goals in a sweep over St Thomas and earned a - domination in the series opener against the Gophers But they struggled to get to Minnesota goalie Luca Di Pasquo in the series finale The lone goal came on a point shot by freshman defenseman Keaton Verhoeff in the first period Friday night we did such a good job of consistently playing hard UND coach Dane Jackson stated We really did a good job of puck management and checking Tonight I thought it was a little bit intermittent We didn t really do a great job of resetting and being ready for the push that they had We all know in college hockey you ve got to amp it up another level for the second night I thought we were a little bit back from where we were The teams traded goals in the first then the meeting bogged down in the second Minnesota had just eight shots on goal through two periods despite having four power plays But the Gophers made a push in the third They outshot UND - in the final frame I think we let off the throttle Zmolek noted I thought we didn t match their intensity I thought they deserved to win The biggest thing is we didn t match their intensity We didn t play with the grit we normally have We didn t get to the dirty areas Penalties were also a factor in the series The Gophers gave UND seven power plays on Friday night While UND didn t figure on the advantage until Minnesota pulled its goalie the penalty killing wore on Minnesota On Saturday UND handed the Gophers six power plays They scored one power-play goal and added another just seconds after a power play expired Not real smart there Jackson explained of the stick penalties A group like Minnesota is obviously really good at that and they re going to build momentum and get chances We ve got to be a little better there We can definitely talk about that and continue to really stress it and make a point of being more disciplined in that area UND s last sweep of Minnesota came in November in Minneapolis UND hasn t done it at home since January The Gophers last swept UND in November in Minneapolis The teams are scheduled to play in Minneapolis on Oct - They ll return to Grand Forks in - We re going to be back up here in two years Minnesota coach Bob Motzko disclosed A series like this because we re a young unit in two years we re going to have a lot of experience and be better coming back UND hopes to learn lessons from Saturday s series finale I thought when they scored that second goal something we invariably preach is the next shift you have to forget about that goal and just move forward Wiebe disclosed I thought we didn t do that tonight That s something we can learn from and grow from Obviously it s early in the season We ve got a lot of games to do that Right now it s just learn from that grow from that and go into the next series Related Articles Powell leads Tommies to lopsided win over Valparaiso Was Gophers triumph over No Nebraska worth storming the field UND delivers rivalry win over Minnesota for raucous crowd Gophers run over No Nebraska in a - win Gophers secondary remains shorthanded vs Nebraska