The University of Minnesota Duluth men's hockey team needed a win Friday night at AMSOIL Arena in Duluth, Minn., and after 62:02 of action, they got it.

The Bulldogs came away with two points after they went to overtime with Miami University (Ohio) before recording the 3-2 National Collegiate Hockey Conference win. 

" I thought we came out and played afraid to lose a game," said UMD head coach Scott Sandelin. "I thought we were a little tentative, we weren't confident in what we were doing, I thought they came out and worked just like we thought they would. We had moments where we seemed to find it a little bit, and certainly had chances to, I mean, the end of the game could have probably been 7-5. ?I mean, obviously Adam (Gajan) made two or three big saves for us, but we had some good opportunities as well, but it's a good start and we'll see if we can finish it off tomorrow."

The RedHawks opened the scoring at 8:01 on a breakaway finish from Max Dukovac. But less than three minutes later, Braden Fischer popped his fifth goal of the season off a Ty Hanson rebound to equalize at 11:47.

Less than two minutes later and 1:19 into a Miami five-minute major for kneeing, the Bulldogs struck again. This time it was Callum Arnott, who called his own name and shoveled the puck into the twine off a pass from Max Plante for the 2-1 lead at 13:39.

That score would hold until deep into third period when Miami's Ryan Sullivan found the equalizer at 15:24 of the third, a goal that would stand to force overtime and handed each team one point in the NCHC standings.

It took just 2:02 of overtime for the Bulldogs to break through on the scoreboard. Plante picked up his second helper of the night after he carried the puck across the RedHawk blueline and flipped the puck over to his left to a hard charging Jack Smith. Smith backhanded the puck past netminder Bruno Bruveris off the far post to seal the second league point and 3-2 win all at once.

"I saw Max with the puck and I got my feet moving up the side." said Smith. "He made an unbelievable pass and I just tried to slip it five-hole and it went far post weak side."

Adam Gajan, in his 15th start of the season, had 25 saves for the Bulldogs en route to his sixth collegiate win. Bruveris had 38 stops for the RedHawks, who went 0-of-2 on their power play and were outshot by UMD 41-27. The Bulldogs went 1-of-4 with an extra skater on the night.

UMD (12-17-2, 8-12-1) and Miami (3-26-2, 0-21-0) will do it all over again tomorrow night. UMD's six seniors will be honored in a pregame ceremony – the puck will drop at 6:07 p.m.

BULLDOG NOTES: UMD is now unbeaten in its last seven games against the RedHawks and now 19-2-2 at home against their NCHC foes … UMD is now 2-3-2 in overtime games … the Bulldogs are also now 3- 15-0 when an opponent scores first …  Friday was Max Plante's seventh multiple-point game of the season … in the process, Plante overtook his father Derek's rookie numbers Friday night (21 points over 28 games), and now owns 22 points (7g, 15a) … it's also his third game with two assists – so far a career high – on the year … Jack Smith broke a 10-game scoring drought with the game-winner … it also marks the first game-winning goal of his career.