PHILADELPHIA -- Union College won its first NCAA hockey title Saturday night, scoring three times in a 1:54 span in the first period in a 7-4 victory over Minnesota on Saturday night. Denis Menke Jersey . Mike Vecchione tied it at 2 with 4:01 left in the first, Saskatoon native Eli Lichtenwald gave the Dutchman the lead 57 seconds later, and Daniel Ciampini capped the spree with 2:57 to go. "The staple of our team all year -- we come in waves," Union captain Mat Bodie said. "All three of those goals were pack-of-wolf goals where we were just throwing the puck on net." Bodie, Shayne Gostisbehere, Max Novak and Kevin Sullivan also scored and Colin Stevens made 36 saves for Union (32-6-4), the 2,200-student liberal arts college in Schenectady, N.Y., that competes in Division III in all other sports. "I dont think anyone will call us Cinderella anymore," said Gostisbehere, who had a goal and two assists. "These guys, my brothers, they do everything for me. I dont care about anything else, were national champions." Justin Kloos, Sam Warning, Taylor Cammarata and Hudson Fasching scored for Minnesota (28-7-6). Adam Wilcox stopped 41 shots for the five-time champion Gophers. "Both teams are better defensively than a 7-4 score shows," Bodie said. "Its just one of those games where crazy bounces happen. We just wanted to stick with our process. We thought we were playing pretty well and great things happened." Cammarata pulled Minnesota within one with the lone goal in the second period, but Novak restored the two-goal cushion on a deflection at 5:31 of the third. Fasching cut it to 5-4 with a power-play goal with 3:40 left. Sullivan put it away with 1:22 to go, and Bodie scored into an empty net with 44.2 seconds remaining. "Just one shift at a time," Bodie said. "This is the biggest game of our lives, hands down, but youve got to treat it like any other game. It was tough, I had people texting me, people calling me and stuff, and, you know, it was real tough to keep that mindset, but with our sport psychologist we were able to get that done." Kloos opened the scoring on a rebound 2:37 into the first period. Gostisbehere responded by weaving through three opponents and beating Wilcox with a wrist shot to glove side at 9:26. "He controlled the game," Minnesota coach Don Lucia said. "From my vantage point, he was the best player on the ice tonight." Less than a minute later, Warning squeaked a bad-angle shot between Stevens and the pipe to put Minnesota up 2-1. Union won its final 12 games and went 16-0-1 in its last 17. Ciampini scored three goals in the Dutchmens 5-4 victory over Boston College in the semifinals Thursday night. The Dutchmen have competed in Division I since 1991-92. Minnesota lost for the seventh time in the title game. The Gophers were making their first appearance in the championship game since winning its second straight title in 2003. NOTES: Union last met Minnesota in 2010-11, when it won 3-2 in Minneapolis. The overall series is tied 2-2 . ... Flyers general manager Paul Holmgren dropped the ceremonial first puck. Holmgren played for the 1974-75 Minnesota team that lost to Michigan Tech in the national title game. ... The 2015 Frozen Four will be played at TD Garden in Boston. Joe Pepitone Jersey .40 metres at the Drake Relays. Drouin, from Corunna, Ont., bested his own record of 2.38 metres set in Aug. J. R. Richard Jersey . Sixteen teams have moved on. Sixteen teams have gone home. LONDON -- Protecting 2-0 leads from their last-16 first legs, Barcelona and Bayern Munich are huge favourites to advance in the Champions League this week when they play return matches at home. Yet theres enough evidence to suggest Europes two heavyweight teams still have plenty of work to do. Barcelona has lost three of its last six matches in the Spanish league, giving Manchester City renewed hope the two-goal deficit may not be too much to bridge. Arsenal, meanwhile, heads to Bayern having won 2-0 at the Allianz Arena in a round-of-16 second leg last season. In this weeks other second legs, Atletico Madrid leads AC Milan 1-0 and Paris Saint-Germain is 4-0 in front against Bayer Leverkusen. ------ Here is a lookahead to the games in Europes top knockout competition on Tuesday and Wednesday: BAYERN MUNICH vs. ARSENAL Bayern is heeding the lesson learned from losing to Arsenal at home in the last 16 last season, when only away goals ensured progress before it went on to win the title. Another 2-0 loss on Tuesday would level the aggregate score. "If we let Arsenal have the ball, well have big, big problems," said Bayern coach Pep Guardiola, who otherwise has little to worry about. Guardiola had a full squad to choose from for Saturdays 6-1 rout at Wolfsburg. Defender Holger Badstuber was among the 20 players to travel after recovering from tearing the cruciate ligament in his right knee. The win was Bayerns 16th in a row, setting a new record in the Bundesliga, where the side is undefeated in 49 games. In inspiring Arsenal to a 4-1 win over Everton in the FA Cup quarterfinals on Saturday, Germany playmaker Mesut Ozil returned to the kind of form that persuaded the Gunners to break their club record to sign him from Real Madrid in the summer. ------ ATLETICO MADRID vs. AC MILAN Atletico Madrid will have two reasons to feel good about its chances to advance past AC Milan on Tuesday. First, leading scorer Diego Costa will be well rested after missing Saturdays Spanish league win at Celta Vigo due to a one-game suspension. Diego Costa scored the winner in Atleticos 1-0 first-leg victory at Milan. And second, David Villa has found his scoring touch after firing home two well-taken goals with Diego Costa unavailable over the weekend in Atleticos 2-0 victory in Vigo that kept it in the Spanish title chase. Coach Diego Simeone may opt to return to aligning both strikers as he did earlier in the season after not playing Villa in the first leg in Italy or in a recent derby against Real Madrid. Gerrit Cole Jersey. Milan has lost its last two Serie A matches but has Mario Balotelli back from a shoulder injury that has sidelined him since the first leg. ------ BARCELONA vs. MANCHESTER CITY Barcelona is playing its worst football since the end of last season, when the team limped to the Spanish league title. After apparently being rejuvenated under first-year coach Gerard Martino, the side has dropped points in five of the last nine rounds to go from pacesetter to chasing Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid. With its domestic title defence in question, failing to protect a 2-0 first-leg advantage over City at the Camp Nou and an early exit from Europe would be nothing less than disastrous for the Catalan club. The match comes four days after Barcelona lost 1-0 at relegation-threatened Valladolid, when only Lionel Messi appeared up to the task. Barcelona midfielder Sergio Busquets said his team needs to rediscover "the desire to win every game." "We have had enough after this loss," Busquets said. City, meanwhile, will be hoping to build on its winning momentum since lifting the League Cup. It will have forward Sergio Aguero back from injury to help. ------ PARIS SAINT-GERMAIN vs. BAYER LEVERKUSEN PSG is all but qualified for the quarterfinals and this gives coach Laurent Blanc the chance to give some of his key players a breather for the return leg against Leverkusen. Only a monumental collapse will see the German side through but with Zlatan Ibrahimovic in a hungry mood and PSG scoring freely, it seems another hiding is the more likely scenario for Leverkusen, which has lost five of its past six games. With a tough match to follow on Sunday against in-form Saint-Etienne, it seems Blanc is already preparing ahead. "We have an important game against Saint-Etienne coming up," he said. "Whatever team is selected, theres always the same desire to win. Its important for the big teams to have this." Although Ibrahimovic should start, he could come off in the second half, thus giving Blanc the chance to switch Edinson Cavani from the right wing and play him in his favouredcentre-forward role. ' ' '
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