Bemidji State's Illo Radoslav and Colorado College's Nick Dineen, right, vie for the puck during the first period of a college hockey game at World Arena in Colorado Springs, Colo., on Saturday, Oct. 15, 2011. (AP Photo/The Gazette, Jerilee Bennett)
A goaltending change sparked No. 7 Colorado College to a 6-4 victory Saturday night over the Bemidji State men’s hockey team in front of a sold-out crowd of 7,595 at World Arena.
Joe Howe replaced Josh Thorimbert to start the third period and the Tigers responded with three goals in the final 20 minutes to sweep the weekend series.
Rylan Schwartz scored his hat trick and game-winning goal midway through the third period. Howe weathered early pressure from the BSU offense in the third period and turned away all 13 shots he faced.
Jeff Collett, Nick Dineen and Jaden Schwartz also scored for the Colorado College.
She Walters, Drew Fisher, Ben Kinne and Radoslav Illo scored for the Beavers. BSU scored three times on the power play.
Bemidji State goalie Mathieu Dugas had 33 saves in his first start of the season. Josh Thorimbert started for Colorado College and had 12 saves on 16 shots in the first two periods.
Bemidji State (1-3, 0-2 WCHA) returns to Bemidji next weekend for the home-opening series against Michigan Tech at the Sanford Center. Game times are 7:37 p.m. Friday and 7:07 p.m. Saturday. Colorado College (2-0, 2-0 WCHA) is idle next week.
Bemidji State led 2-1 after a free-flowing first period. Walters scored his second goal of the year 9:11 into the game by putting back a rebound from the top of the crease on the power play.
Collett scored for the Tigers two minutes later when he drew a penalty at center ice and beat Dugas at the net with a wraparound on the same shift.
Freshman Mitch Cain started the play to give the Beavers a 2-1 lead. He skated from the BSU blue line hard to the Colorado College net, made the shot and Fisher trailed the play to score on the rebound.
Cain, who played in his first college game Friday, finished the series with a goal and an assist.
Rylan Schwartz scored 37 seconds into the second period when Scott Winkler’s shot deflected off his shoulder past Dugas.
Kinne added the second power-play goal of the night for the Beavers at 9:09 of the second period with a one-timer over Thorimbert’s shoulder. Walters assisted on the goal, Kinne’s first since March 13, 2010.
Schwartz scored his second goal on power play for the Tigers with 4:06 left in the second period to tie the game at 3-3.
Illo answered three minutes later with a slap shot blast from the blue line on the power play for a 4-3 lead.
The game slipped away from Bemidji when Howe emerged to make tough saves in the opening minutes of the third period. Howe had 25 saves in Colorado College’s 3-1 win over the Beavers on Friday.
Dineen tied the game for the fourth and last time at 5:45 into the third when he scored on Joe Marciano’s rebound at the edge of the net.
Schwartz’s zipped a wrist shot under the crossbar from the top of the left circle with 9:41 for the hat trick and game-winning goal.
Jaden Schwartz iced the win with an empty-net goal with 33 seconds remaining.
Scoring Summary
BSU 2 2 0 – 4
CC 1 2 3 – 6
First period – 1, BSU, Walters 2 (Illo, Orban), 9:11, (pp). 2, CC, Collett 1 (Civitarese, Krushelnyski), 11:34. 3, BSU, Fisher 1 (Cain), 16:08.
Second period – 4, CC, R. Schwartz 1 (Winkler, J.Schwartz), :37. 5, BSU, Kinne 1 (Walters, Illo), 9:09, (pp). 6, CC, R. Schwartz 2 (Guentzel, Boivin), 15:54, (pp). 7, Illo 1 (Orban, Walters), 18:19, (pp).
Third period – 8, CC, Dineen 1 (Marciano), 5:45. 9, CC, R. Schwartz 3 (Winkler), 10:19. 10, CC, J. Schwartz 2(Winkler), 19:27, (en).
Shots on goal – BSU, 10-8-11-29. CC, 13-13-13-39.
Goalies – BSU, Dugas (39-33). CC, Thorimbert (18-14, 40:00), Howe (13-13, 20:00).
Power plays – BSU, 3-for-4. CC, 1-for-3.
A-7,595.
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