Points are a hot commodity in the National Collegiate Hockey Conference and the University of Minnesota Duluth came away with one Friday night by battling back to gain a 2-2 overtime tie with Western Michigan University. The visiting Broncos prevailed in the shootout, 2-1, to pick up the extra point in the NCHC series opener.

No. 5 UMD (13-7-1 overall; 8-4-1-0 NCHC) making its first appearance at AMSOIL Arena in six weeks, found itself down 2-0 at the first intermission after Colton Hargrove and Nolan LaPorte (on the power play) struck for goals 2:41 apart late in the period. The Bulldogs cut that lead in half at 5:01 of the second when sophomore defenseman Brenden Kotyk teed up a shot from the left point that whistled through traffic and beat Western Michigan goaltender Lukas Hafner. The goal was Kotyk's first as a Bulldog (he played his rookie season at the College of St. Scholastica) and came on UMD's second power play opportunity of the evening. Just under five minutes into the third period, Justin Crandall, who helped set up the Kotyk tally, drew UMD even when a tip from Tony Cameranesi deflected off the senior right winger's head and fluttered into the Bronco net. Crandall, Kotyk and Cameranesi each had two points for the Bulldogs, who held the Broncos to just 16 shots the entire evening while generating 26 of their own. Cameranesi, UMD's leader in assists with 12, extended his career-best scoring streak to eight games.

In the shootout, sophomore left winger Alex Iafallo struck on the opening attempt, but UMD was blanked on its last two attempts while Nolan LaPorte (who scored once in regulation) and Frederik Tiffels both cashed in on the Broncos' final two tries. Iafallo (two) is the only active Bulldog with an NCHC shootout goal to his collegiate credit.

"It was a hard-fought point, but obviously would hae like to have gotten more with a shootout win," said head coach Scott Sandelin, whose Bulldogs are now 2-1 lifetime in NCHC shootouts. "I give our guys credit for battling back again after getting off to a slow start."

UMD, which is unbeaten in its last five home games (4-0-1) and Western Michigan, which has lost just once in its last nine overall outings (6-1-2) will meet again Saturday night in Duluth.



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