From Minot Daily News
By MSU Athletics
Minot State’s men’s hockey team opened their home slate over the weekend with a sweep of the Liberty Flames at Maysa Arena, on a weekend when they raised the banner honoring last year’s national championship team.
Friday
They couldn’t derail the Beavers march to a third national championship this past spring, nor could the Liberty Flames spoil Minot State’s championship celebration Friday night.
Honoring the 2022-23 ACHA National Championship team and raising a title banner prior to their home debut, Minot State then rallied from a one-goal deficit to beat the visiting Flames 3-2 in a shoot-out at the Maysa Arena, the third straight win for the Beavers already this young season over Liberty.
Minot State also beat Liberty 4-2 and 5-3 in Virginia last weekend.
Playing their first home game since claiming the title back in March, the Beavers (4-0-0 overall) started off a bit slow, and early in the second period found themselves down 1-0 after the visitors scored 15 seconds into the second stanza.
That lit a fire in the Beavers who evened the score with a power-play goal by Troy Hamilton with 9:24 gone in the second, then Trenton Curtis scored his first collegiate goal 2:23 into the third to put Minot State on top 2-1.
The Flames (1-2-1) kept battling though, tying it with 5:13 left in regulation with a power-play goal, forcing overtime where Minot State fended off another Liberty power-play opportunity to get to the shoot-out.
In the shoot-out, Joey Moffatt scored the lone goal and Jake Anthony stopped all four Flames chances to seal the victory.
Anthony finished with 32 saves in the win for Minot State.
Saturday
This time the Beavers didn’t need overtime or a shoot-out.
Reid Arnold scored a pair of goals and Trenton Curtis added a goal and two assists as the Minot State men’s hockey team erupted early and routed rival Liberty 8-1 on Saturday night at the Maysa Arena, sweeping the four-game season series between the ACHA national semifinalists.
Minot State (5-0-0 overall) beat Liberty 3-2 in a shoot-out Friday night at home, and also beat the Flames 4-2 and 5-3 last weekend in Virginia.
Curtis, just a freshman, put Minot State in front with his second collegiate goal just 3 minutes, 56 seconds into the game Saturday night, then he assisted on Christian Kadolph’s first of the season just 3:05 later.
Arnold pushed the lead to 3-0 with his first of the night with 2:19 left in the first, the first of two quick power-play goals for the Beavers who made it 4-0 when Jay Buchholz scored with the man advantage just 1:39 later, and the rout was underway.
From there, Minot State added goals by Reece Henry, Arnold, and Payton Jerome in the second period, claiming a 7-0 lead.
After Liberty broke up the shutout with a power-play goal of their own late in the second, Carter Barley added one more power-play goal for Minot State in the third to finish off the night.
Jake Anthony finished with 23 saves in goal in the win for Minot State, which is back in action next Saturday playing at Mary.
(Originally published at https://www.minotdailynews.com/sports/local-sports/2023/10/minot-state-raises-banner-on-way-to-weekend-sweep/)
