Needing to not only win, but win by three goals to advance in the tournament, St. Bonaventure (14-10-1) fell to Tampa, 3-2, Friday night in the final game of pool play at the AAU College Hockey Nationals in Jacksonville, Florida.
The hill was just too high to climb.
Needing to not only win, but win by three goals to advance in the tournament, St. Bonaventure (14-10-1) fell to Tampa, 3-2, Friday night in the final game of pool play at the AAU College Hockey Nationals in Jacksonville, Florida.
Tampa (20-4-1), the second seed in the tournament, advanced to the national semifinals Saturday night.
The Bonnies, seeded No. 7 in the tournament, needed to win by three goals because the tiebreaker in a three-way tie — Fairfield also finished 2-1 in the pool after beating Auburn Friday morning — was fewest goals allowed in the tournament.
Tampa entered tonight’s game having given up only two goals; SBU had allowed five. Had the Bonnies won by three, they’d have won the next tiebreaker (goal differential).
A terrible break put the Bonnies in an early 1-0 hole.
Tampa scored less than 3 minutes into the game while shorthanded when a clearing pass took a crazy bounce off the end boards and went right to the stick of Tampa’s William McCann in front of a wide open net. Bonnies goalie Kyle Karoleski, waiting to play the puck off the boards, had no chance.
Tampa scored 4 minutes later on the power play to take a 2-0 lead after the first period. But SBU tied it in the second.
Sam Cichowski deflected a Miles Brown shot from the point while on the power play just over a minute into the period and Tyler Menz scored with 4 minutes left, blocking a Tampa shoot-in at the blue line and converting a breakaway to tie it.
Tampa added an empty-net goal with 2:38 left in the game for the winning score.
Karoleski stopped 35 of 37 shots for the Bonnies.
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About the University: The nation’s first Franciscan university, St. Bonaventure is a community committed to transforming the lives of its students inside and outside the classroom, inspiring in them a commitment to academic excellence and lifelong civic engagement. Out of 167 regional universities in the North, St. Bonaventure was ranked #6 for value and #14 for innovation by U.S. News and World Report (2024).