ST. CLOUD, Minn. - Sophomore goaltender Jon Olthuis recorded a season-high 28 saves and junior defenseman Mat Robinson tallied three assists to help Alaska Anchorage earn one league point as it battled No. 19 St. Cloud State to a 4-4 tie tonight in front of 6,010 fans here at the National Hockey Center.
The Seawolves, who moved to 3-2-3 overall and 0-2-2 in the WCHA, held a 3-1 lead at the midway point of the game and a 4-3 advantage in the third, were unable to hold off the homestanding Huskies (4-2-2, 1-2-1 WCHA) who extended their current unbeaten streak to four games.
Senior Blair Tassone, sophomore Kevin Clark, senior Merit Waldrop and freshman Winston DayChief scored goals for UAA, which snapped a six-game regular-season road losing skid with the tie.
SCSU jumped out to a 1-0 lead on an evenstrength tally from Brent Boregon 6:17 into the game, but the Seawolves would score three unanswered goals to take a 3-1 lead by the 6:45 mark of the second.
Tassone struck for his first goal of the season with an unassisted tally at 11:40 of the first deadlocking the game at 1-1 before Clark would find the back of the net at the 16:29 mark giving UAA a 2-1 advantage at the first intermission. Robinson and sophomore Paul Crowder were credited with assists on Clark's team-leading 10th point of the season.
Waldrop extended the Seawolf lead to 3-1 after blistering a slapper from the just inside the blueline for his first goal of the season at the 6:45 mark of the second, but the Huskies would get a score from Ryan Lasch at 13:54 making the score 3-2 at the end of two periods.
The Huskies would draw even with UAA on a Garrett Roe power-play strike at 5:31 of the third making the score 3-3 before DayChief would lift the 'Wolves back into the lead with a power-play marker at 8:02. DayChief one-timed a perfect feed from freshman blueliner Kane Lafranchise from the left circle to cash in on UAA's lone power-play opportunity of the game. Robinson collected his third assist of the night on DayChief's fourth score of the season.
The lead would last for less than two minutes as sophomore Andreas Nodl was able to skate throught the UAA zone with the puck and slip it past Olthuis at the 9:54 mark for the game's final tally. Despite giving up the equalizer, Olthuis came up huge for UAA in the final frame, making a game-best 10 saves.
UAA controlled most of the action during the overtime period in SCSU's zone - outshooting the Huskies 4-1 - but were unable to put in the game winner.
Outshot 32-22, the Seawolves capitalized on their only power-play chance of the night (1-for-1), while limiting SCSU to just one power-play goal in five chances.
Husky goaltender Dan Dunn made 18 saves in his first career WCHA start.
UAA will get another crack at SCSU Feb. 15-16, 2008 at the Sullivan Arena.
The Seawolves are off next weekend before resuming their conference schedule Nov. 16-17 with a two-game series at Minnesota.
