No. 1 SCSU shocked again in first round of NCAA tournament
For the second consecutive year, the No. 1 St. Cloud State Huskies were upset by a 16-seeded team at the NCAA tournament. This time, SCSU fell to American International College 2-1.
Just one year ago, this same group of Huskies fell to the Air Force Falcons 4-1 in the same barn at Scheels Arena in Fargo, North Dakota as the top seed in the tournament.
It was a sluggish start as St. Cloud State spent the majority of the first period in their own zone and American International netted the game's first goal from Joel Kocur.
The Huskies finished with just six shots on net after twenty minutes.
It was the same story in the second period, SCSU had their second power play opportunity but couldn't convert.
Later in the frame, the Yellow Jackets increased their lead to 2-0 when Brennan Kapcheck's shot squeaked passed goaltender David Hrenak.
St. Cloud finally got on the board at the midway point of the third period when Easton Brodzinski scored a power-play goal to cut the deficit in half.
But it was too late.
Even with their goaltender pulled for more than two minutes, the Huskies weren't able to tie things up. Yellow Jackets goaltender Zackarias Skog held the Huskies in check, making 33 saves in the win.
The Huskies' senior class will be moving on with sour tastes in their mouths. During their freshman seasons in 2015-16, they were the No. 2 seed in the tournament and were upset by No. 15 seed Ferris State.
After missing the NCAA tournament all together in 2016-17, they followed that up with back-to-back losses to Air Force and now American International College.
All in all, the prolific group of players failed to win a single NCAA tournament game in their careers.
AIC moves onto face Denver in the regional final, with the winner advancing to the Frozen Four in Buffalo, New York.
Fellow Minnesota college teams MSU and UMD are also No. 1 seeds, and play on Saturday at noon and 3 p.m. respectively.
