Mar 12, 2023
Long before the tournament started, Jordan Farnham knew the No. 16 next to Georgia’s seed line in the AAU College Hockey National Championship was a mistake.
“That’s a top 10 team and playing them on such a short turnaround is going to be a challenge,” Farnham, the Bonnies’ head coach, said last week.
Farnham knew firsthand how good Georgia was. The Bulldogs traveled to Olean to play the Bonnies in October and handed SBU one of only two blemishes on its regular-season record: a 2-2 tie.
Despite a spirited third-period rally to wipe out a 2-0 deficit, St. Bonaventure (20-2-2), the tourney’s No. 1 seed, fell to the Bulldogs (25-9-2) in overtime, 3-2, on freshman Evan Parente’s second goal of the game with just 2 minutes to play. The win advanced Georgia to the quarterfinal round Monday as the winner of Pool A.
The Bonnies defeated Massachusetts Maritime Saturday in a game that ended well past 11 p.m. on spring-the-clocks-forward night, just over 14 hours before the puck dropped vs. Georgia, which beat High Point Saturday afternoon in a game that ended at 2 p.m.
The Bulldogs took advantage of two Bonnies’ miscues to take a 2-0 lead.
An errant pass in their defensive zone didn’t clear the blue line, leaving Declan Conway wide open down low halfway through the first period.
Parente beat Kyle Karoleski to give Georgia a 2-0 lead in the second period when Brady Fitzpatrick lost his footing on a poorly groomed patch of ice, leaving Parente wide open in front of the net.
But the Bonnies drew a power play in the closing seconds of the second period and took advantage of it early in the third when Owen Hughes beat Ryan Testino after a scramble in front of the net.
The goal energized the Bonnies’ bench and crowd and the Bulldogs were on their heels the rest of the period, with Hughes scoring the equalizer on a gorgeous pass from the right point from Mitchell Marsh with 12:48 left to play.
At one point, Georgia held a 27-21 edge in shots on goal midway through the second period, but the Bonnies outshot the Bulldogs, 25-8, the rest of the way.
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About the University: The nation’s first Franciscan university, St. Bonaventure University is a community committed to transforming the lives of our students inside and outside the classroom, inspiring in them a lifelong commitment to service and citizenship. St. Bonaventure was named the #5 regional university value in the North in U.S. News and World Report’s 2022 college rankings edition.