Boston University going for sixth college hockey championship Saturday vs. Western Michigan
Boston University will be playing for a national championship Saturday night, with the Terriers set to face Western Michigan after both teams earned Frozen Four victories Thursday in St. Louis. Boston University is hoping to return to Comm. Ave with the school's sixth title and first since 2009.
Boston University beat Penn State, 3-1, Thursday night
on second period goals by senior forward Jack Hughes (2 goals, 2 assists in the tournament) and freshman forward Cole Eiserman (8 goals in his last 7 games). The Nittany Lions made it a 2-1 game early in the third, but freshman goalie Mikhail Yegorov made 17 of his 32 saves in the final frame and Jack Harvey added an empty netter in the final minute to seal the victory for the Terriers.
After losing in the semifinals the last two years, BU is breathing a big sigh of a relief over making the championship round this year. But the Terriers know their work isn't done in St. Louis.
"We all come here for a reason: To win a national championship. Having the opportunity to do that is exciting," said Hughes, a Westwood native. "That's been our goal the whole way. It's a little bit of a relief for now, but then we'll get back to work and hopefully win it all."
"We came up short the last two years, and that helped our team have an understanding you have to play a certain way to get to that final game. We know the job isn't done yet," head coach Jay Pandolfo said after Thursday night's win. "[Western Michigan] is a very structured team with a lot of offensive talent. It's going to be a tough matchup for us."
The Terriers will face a Western Michigan squad coming off a 3-2 win in double overtime over defending champion Denver on Thursday night.
Saturday night will be the fifth time Boston University and Western Michigan square off, with the Terriers victorious in the previous four matchups. The two schools last met in the 2023 regional finals, which Boston University won 5-1 in Manchester, New Hampshire.
Western Michigan is the No. 4 overall seed and sits at 32-7-1 on the season following wins over Minnesota State, UMass, and Denver in the NCAA Tournament. All three of the Broncos wins in the tourney have been one-goal victories.
Boston University was 5-0-2 in one-goal games this season, including the a 3-2 tournament win over Cornell to win the Toledo region and make the Frozen Four.
"If you're going to win a championship, you have to find a way to win those tight games," Pandolfo said Thursday. "We've been in enough of them this year."
The Terriers are off to the title round for the first time since 2015, when they lost to Providence at TD Garden. Boston University's last won a championship in 2009, when the school beat Miami of Ohio, 4-3, in overtime to give head coach Jack Parker his third and final title.
Saturday will mark the 12th time Boston University plays in the national title game, with the Terriers 5-6 in their previous appearances. This is Western Michigan's first trip to the NCAA championship game.
Pandolfo won a championship at BU as a player back in 1995, and is now going for his first as head coach of the Terriers. This year was the seventh time he made it to the Frozen Four as a player or a head coach.
"I was fortunate to play on really good teams when I was a player at BU, and we only won one time, so I have a pretty good understanding of how hard it is to win," Pandolfo said Thursday.
If BU wins Saturday, sophomore Shane Lachance of Andover will become the third member of his family to win a title with the Terriers. His father, Scott, won a championship at Boston University in 1991, before he had a 13-year career in the NHL.
Lachance is also the grandson of Jack Parker, who won a title with the Terriers as a player in 1967 and three as BU's head coach over his 40-year, Hall of Fame career on the bench.
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