By: Brendan Price

The Eagles got four goals from four different goal scorers and withstood a third period rally to finish their three-game road trip in victory lane, defeating the Ogden Mustangs 4-3.

Northern Colorado (4-2-0) got a great early opportunity when Erik Brink had a breakaway from the center red line in the opening ninety seconds. Brink’s wrist shot was blocked aside by Ogden (1-1-0) goaltender Trey Hirschfield to keep the game scoreless in the early going. The next scoring chance the Eagles had, they converted.

Off a clean face-off win on the near side, Marc-Antoine Prince powered a wrist shot top shelf past Hirschfield to launch the Eagles to a 1-0 lead with 16:33 left in the first period. The Eagles’ power play, which had been knocking on the door all weekend, finally converted. Winger Vlad Suhhodolov snared the puck on a turnover and potted the puck into the net for his second goal of the season to double the NoCo advantage to 2-0 just 8:27 into the first period. The Eagles then promptly killed off a 5-on-3 to retain their lead headed into the first intermission.

The Eagles opened the second period with rapid-fire offense, the same way they did the first. On a set play, Alexandre Bedard wired a wrist shot past the glove side of Hirschfield in the opening minute of the period to stretch the lead to 3-0 with 19:08 to play in the second. Goaltender Charles-Anthony Barbeau stopped the first 21 shots he faced and 43 of 46 overall, but ‘Stang forward Jared Weisert beat Barbeau to the glove side to get Ogden on the board, 3-1, with 6:36 left in the middle frame. Quinn O’Reilly nearly got the goal right back; he rang a wrist shot off the far post with 5:41 left in the period and the game stayed 3-1 in favor of the Eagles. Karmic justice prevailed for O’Reilly; he buried a wrist shot in the same spot past Hirschfield with 1:01 to go in the second to give NoCo a 4-1 lead headed into the second intermission.

Another early goal marked the third period, only this time it was Ogden who did the deed. A passing play found Jack Day on the uncovered far post where he slotted the puck past Barbeau to bring the ‘Stangs within two goals, 4-2, with 18:55 to play. With 10:15 to play in the third period, Ogden moved closer thanks to a Teddie Hember slap shot from the point. It pulled Ogden within a goal, 4-3. The Mustangs pulled the goalie with 1:10 to play and poured on the late pressure, peppering Barbeau in the game’s final seconds. Ogden had six shots in the final minute and an offensive zone faceoff with 13 seconds to play, but Charles-Anthony Barbeau stopped them all until the final buzzer.