The University of Minnesota Duluth came into the final weekend of the National Collegiate Hockey Conference regular season play with a chance, albeit an outside chance, to lay claim to its first league title in 27 years. Thanks to what transpired Friday night in Duluth and Omaha, Neb., that chance is still intact.

The No. 5 Bulldogs took care of things on their end by scoring four unanswered goals and taking down St. Cloud State 4-1 while the University of Omaha skated off with a 4-1 victory over the University of North Dakota, which last week claimed at least a share of the NCHC championship. UMD is now just three points behind the lead-leading Fighting Hawks with one regular season game to go, meaning another Bulldog win and North Dakota loss on Saturday would result in Penrose Cup co-champions for 2019-20

UMD, which is 8-1-0 in its last nine outings, improved to 21-10-2 overall and 16-5-2 in the NCHC. Those 16 conference victories are the most the Bulldogs have ever accumulated since the NCHC began operations in 2013-14 (and one more win than the 2016-17 club.)

St. Cloud State (13-14-2; 10-11-2 NCHC), took a 1-0 lead 8:16 into the first period, but senior All-American goaltender Hunter Shepard shut the door after that. Shepard, who earlier in the night was announced as the 2019-20 UMD Fan Favorite (becoming the first two-time winner of that award), finished with 22 saves while his St. Cloud State counterpart, David Hrenak had 31 stops. 

Freshman left winger Quinn Olson got the equalizer for the Bulldogs with 2:22 to go in the second period when he went five-hole with his shot from the top of the left faceoff circle. At the 2:08 mark of the third period, junior right winger Koby Bender rapped in a loose puck while lying on his belly just outside the St. Cloud State goal crease. Sophomore right winger Cole Koepke then added a pair of insurance goals, the first coming at 12:10 on a wraparound and the second after the Huskies had pulled their goaltender for an extra attacker. Koepke, who hiked his scoring streak to nine games, now has a team-leading 16 goals on the season.

"It was not a great first-period for us," said UMD head coach Scott Sandelin. "I thought we got better in the second and then the third period was out best."