Mavs Fall 10 Minutes Shy of Sweep at Western Michigan

On Saturday night, UNO seemed to be cruising to a weekend sweep on the road against Western Michigan.  With under ten minutes left in the game, the Mavs led 3-1 and all seemed fine.

Game starting to get away from the Broncos. Mavericks in complete control right now. No get-up in WMU's step.
— David Drew (@Drew_on_WMU) February 23, 2014

The kids were watching the Olympics, and I got distracted by NBC's daytime skating commentators, who were making a primetime appearance. 

Johnny Weir is starting to wear down Terry Gannon... http://t.co/aIuyCYJ92t
— Husker Mike (@Husker_Mike) February 23, 2014

Then boom, boom, boom... Before I even knew what had happened, Western had tied the game. And a couple of minutes later, the Broncos had the lead. Three goals in just over three minutes, and the game (and the weekend) had slipped away from UNO. (And suddenly, the worst thing I'd seen that evening wasn't Johnny Weir's bouffant.)

It wasn't all bad for UNO on the weekend.  The Mavs are still in third place, with a four point lead over fifth place Denver.  Denver or Minnesota Duluth need to win two more games than UNO over the next two weekends in order to bump UNO out of home ice for the first round of the NCHC playoffs.  But those lost points from Saturday night likely would have meant that UNO could clinch home ice this weekend.  In fact, UNO would have still had a reasonable chance to win or share the regular season conference title.

Instead, the Mavs find themselves two games behind North Dakota and St. Cloud State with four games left to play.  Maybe they weren't going to be able to make that up, especially with the former Sioux and the Huskies matching up this weekend in St. Cloud.  But they had a shot... (and not a Lloyd Christmas chance either...)

UNO's home hockey season wraps up this weekend against seventh place Colorado College, and the regular season ends next week on the road at sixth place Minnesota Duluth.