MARYLAND HEIGHTS, Missouri — No. 4/4 Michigan State rallied from a two-goal deficit at the end of 40 minutes and capped its rally with an overtime game-winner from senior Jeremy Davidson to earn a 5-4 victory over in-state rival Western Michigan in the first round of the 2024 NCAA Tournament.
The Spartans improve to 25-9-3 overall, matching its most wins since 2007-08 and advance to the NCAA regional final for the first time since the same season. It is the most wins since the 2007 National Championship team was 26-13-3. Their opponent in the NCAA Regional final will be archrival Michigan, a 4-3 winner over No 2 seed North Dakota.
Davidson – a native of Kalamazoo – played the role of overtime hero. Trey Augustine took advantage of a shift change by the Broncos and sent the puck up to Nash Nienhuis in the left circle, and Nienhuis turned and brought it out of the defensive zone. He banked it off the wall to a waiting Davidson at the offensive blue line – Davidson then carried it up to the half wall and wristed it net past goalie Cameron Rowe to send MSU on into the regional final on Sunday evening.
Karsen Dorwart sent the game to overtime with his goal with 55 seconds remaining. With Augustine on the bench in favor of an extra skater, Artyom Levshunov carried the puck up the right wall, wheeled into the right circle and got Rowe to commit to his left post, then dished it to Dorwart below the hash marks. Dorwart had a wide-open left side of the net to knot the score and send the game to OT.
The Spartan rally from a two-goal deficit began when Nash Nienhuis pulled his team within a goal at 8:15 of the third period, when he converted a Tiernan Shoudy pass for his ninth goal of the season. Western Michigan pushed to try to tack on an insurance goal, outshooting the Spartans by an 11-7 margin – but Augustine was more than up to the task as he stopped all 11 to put the Spartans in a position to win. MSU outshot the Broncos 4-0 in the OT period.
Western Michigan held 1-0 and 4-2 leads in the game. The first Bronco lead came just over seven minutes into the opening period on a Matteo Constantini score. MSU scored twice in the opening 10 minutes of the second period – scores on a breakaway by Daniel Russell and a blast off a faceoff win by,David Gucciardi - to take its first lead of the game. Western Michigan took what looked like a commanding 4-2 advantage by scoring the equalizer on the power play and scored twice more in the next 3:20 to turn a 2-1 deficit into two-goal advantage.
Trey Augustine made 34 saves in his NCAA Tournament debut and picked up his first collegiate assist on the game-winner. Rowe made 27 stops.
