The University of Massachusetts (Amherst) won its first ever Hockey East tournament title this season. Now it's also claimed its inaugural NCAA championship.
The Minutemen blitzed St. Cloud State, 5-0, on Saturday night at PPG Paints Arena in Pittsburgh to win the school's first men's hockey national title, and first NCAA crown for UMass in any sport since 1998 when football won the NCAA Division I-AA Football Championship.
Five years ago, UMass Hockey won a total of five games under new head coach Greg Carvel. Two years ago, the Minutemen and Carvel made it to their first NCAA championship contest, but were blanked by defending national champion Minnesota-Duluth in Buffalo.
Not this time. This year, it was UMass doing the whitewashing.
Aaron Bohlinger's first career goal early in the first period on Saturday stood up as the game-winner for UMass (20-5-4 overall), before Reed Lebster made it 2-0 with just over a minute remaining in the opening stanza. Philip Lagunov (shorthanded) and Matthew Kessel (power play) then scored in the second period to make it 4-0 for the Minutemen after 40 minutes, before Bobby Trivigno salted away the scoring exactly six minutes into the final frame.
Filip Lindberg made 25 saves for the shutout in his return to the UMass net, after he sat out the semifinal win over Minnesota-Duluth two nights earlier due to COVID-19. Dávid Hrenák made 17 stops for SCSU (20-11-0), in the Huskies' first appearance in the NCAA Division I title game.
It was the first NCAA title for a Hockey East team since 2015, when Providence edged Boston University in Boston. The win by UMass also snapped a string of four straight national title championships by St. Cloud's league, the NCHC.
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