GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. - When Cornell center Michael Kennedy ripped a shot towards the goal from seemingly point-blank range with 2:44 to go in Sunday’s Midwest Regional Championship game, it looked like the cardiac kids from Ithaca might have had one more magic trick up their sleeves.

This Matt Dalton save on Cornell's Michael Kennedy appropriately highlighted the Beavers' win.

After all, Kennedy and his teammates came from behind one night earlier against Northeastern, and a week earlier in the ECAC Hockey semifinals against Princeton. And even before that, they had done it twice before in NCAA tournament play against Ohio State and Colorado College in 2005 and 2006.

But just as he was there 34 times on Saturday and 23 other times in the regional final, sophomore netminder Matt Dalton slid to the Beavers’ rescue, emphatically closing his glove on the puck with a memorable save that put an appropriate exclamation point on a weekend that will go down in college hockey history.

Bemidji State’s 4-1 win sent them to the Frozen Four. They are the lowest-seeded team ever to reach the Frozen, and the first Frozen representative from College Hockey America.

“Once we got up I was just confident,” Dalton said of the save. “I knew that I wasn’t going to let anything in. I just knew it was meant to happen.”

The fervor with which Dalton made the save was an appropriate finish to a weekend that saw the most deserving team reach the Frozen Four. All weekend long, Bemidji State puncuated their suffocating forecheck and stellar defense with finishing moves and saves more than worthy of exclamation points.

After Cornell drew first blood in the middle stages of the second period, Bemidji quickly retaliated with a goal on a blue line shot by sophomore Ryan Adams - it was only the second of his career - just two minutes later. Dalton, who could have been catastrophically shaken when his team fell behind against a stingy Cornell team, knew that the Beavers were in a great position once they evened the score.

“It was a battle the whole game and giving up that first goal there I was kind of a bit nervous,” Dalton said. “But I had faith in our team. And then they scored one a minute or two after, and it was kind of like okay, they got one back for me and just battle here.”

Dalton simply breathed a sight of relief when Adams’ shot found the back of the net, but he could barely contain his excitement when senior Tyler Scofield scorched a shot past Cornell goaltender Ben Scrivens, giving the Beavers a third period lead - a key advantage for a team that has gone 15-0-0 when leading after two periods this yaer.

“When Tyler scored, I was just like ‘Oh my gosh!’,” Dalton said. “It was just an unbelievable feeling. I knew that if we got up, we could shut it down pretty good. The D had been playing unbelievably lately and the forwards were backchecking unbelievably. I just knew that we were going to have it.”

After Scofield’s goal gave Bemidji State the lead, the Beavers got some insurance from senior Matt Francis on a play that epitomized the advantages of an aggressive forechecking style. Freshman Ben Kinne won a battle for the puck on the right wing boards, carried the puck behind the Cornell goal before sliding it to Francis, who beat a Big Red defender to it and put it past Scrivens.

Scofield iced the win with an empty-net goal - his second of the night and third of the regional - from his own half of the ice.

A RARE OCCURRENCE

Before Scofield stole the show with his game-winner, the Big Red were feeling confident that their defensive abilities would still give them a chance to win.

Given their 16-3-0 record when scoring first, captain Colin Greening and his team have a pretty good track recorded at protecting leads. And on this particular night, Greening thought things were going according to plan and that his team was doing a good job dictating the flow of the game.

“One thing we strive for is getting the first goal,” Greening said. “We have a lot of success when we get the first goal. We felt that we were controlling the play and taking it to them. When we did have the lead, they were chipping the puck out a lot. We felt like we had them on their heels and then they tied it 1-1 and the rest was history. But when we had the lead, we felt like we had them on their heels.”

Even after Bemidji State went ahead, Greening and his teammates were optimistic that they could generate some late game offensive sparks.

“We’ve been in situations like that before where we have been down by one or two goals,” Greening said. “Everyone kept positive on the bench. When they got the fourth goal, it took a little wind out of our sails. Even when it was 3-1 everyone was positive on the bench, and we thought we would come back.

While a few mishaps with contact lenses and skates kept some players out of the lineup at different points throughout the game, Cornell coach Mike Schafer chalked the difference up to the play of the top lines in the game rather than a lack of depth.

“If you look at the game tonight, three of their four goals were from their top line,” Schafer said. “And our top line didn’t score. Our depth wasn’t so much a question, but our top lines have to produce. We tried our hardest and they just didn’t get in the back of the net.”

SEEN AND HEARD AT VAN ANDEL ARENA

Schafer made a great point that as universities face difficult fiscal decisions during such trying economic times, Bemidji State’s win might help convince people that hockey is a sport that is worth keeping around, as the nature of the game is that almost anyone can win on any given night.

“Looking at the college hockey skyline, I think that Bemidji legitimizes some people that make the right decisions,” Schafer said. “Some Presidents and (Athletic Directors) are looking and their teams and they can say ‘Hey, Bemidji got the job done here.’ They do things right and now they have a tremendous opportunity to go on and compete for a national title.”

Bemidji State coach Tom Serratore made a similar point in his part of the post-game press conference, that the win can inspire interest in the college game because it is a “land of opportunity.”

“I think this win is great for college hockey,” Serratore said. “This is what college hockey is about and this is what sports are about. We’re not a BCS school, but you take a look at college hockey and college hockey is predominantly a bunch of mid-major institutions. The beauty of college hockey is that there’s a small margin of error and there’s a lot of parity, and it was proven this weekend.”

And with the parity, Serratore believes his team’s success can be an inspiration for other programs that may be going through cloudy days.

“It gives everybody out there a good feeling that, you know what, it can be their day,” Serratore said. “If it’s not next year, than in two years or three years. That’s what we have to look at - we have to look at the big picture, not the small picture.”

Serratore said that he spoke with legendary former Beavers’ coach Bob Peters after the game and Peters also ranks this trip to the Frozen Four amongst the greatest moments in Bemidji State’s storied history, including his 1983-84 team that went 31-0-0.

PLUSSES AND MINUSES

Cornell’s coaches and players were obviously disappointed to come so close to the Frozen Four and lose out, but they were extremely gracious losers and didn’t do anything to detract from Bemidji State’s moment.

Somehow the playing of Bemidji State’s fight song over the public address system just wasn’t as stirring as a live version.

Despite the historical nature of the Bemidji State win, the building definitely lacked any kind of buzz for most of the game. There were modest but enthusiastic contingents of fans from both teams, but at times fans in the lower level might have been able to hear conversations going on all the way up in the press box.

INCH’S THREE STARS OF THE NIGHT

3. Ryan Adams, Bemidji State. Adams doesn’t score often, just twice in 55 career games, as a matter of fact. But he was on target when he needed to be tonight with his shot from the blue line, preventing the Beavers from stewing too long on the goal they had given up two minutes earlier.

2. Matt Dalton, Bemidji State. Dalton was awesome just as he was one night prior. The sophmore made several momentum-shifting saves at critical junctions and kept his cool after falling behind.

1. Tyler Scofield, Bemidji State. Scofield was outstanding all weekend long, and earned a well-deserved most outstanding player award for his efforts. The senior was clutch when he needed to be and played a well-rounded game.

ALL-MIDWEST REGIONAL TEAM

F - Tyler Scofield, Bemidji State
F - Matt Read, Bemidji State
F - Evan Barlow, Cornell
D - Brad Hunt, Bemidji State
D - Ryan Adams, Bemidji State
G - Matt Dalton, Bemidji State

Most Outstanding Player - Tyler Scofield, Bemidji State

WHAT’S NEXT

Bemidji State was extremely impressive at times this weekend, and their top line of Tyler Scofield, Matt Read and Matt Francis have the ability to keep scoring pace with just about any other team in the country. Facing a dynamic and very productive Miami offense in the national semifinal, these guys will need to be at their best. There will probably be talk about how Bemidji State’s trip to the Frozen Four is a fluke, but those fans that didn’t have a chance to see just how effective the Beavers’ aggression is in big-game situations will be in for quite surprise. Make no mistake, this is a team that won its way to the nation’s capital - there was no fluke about it. Will they win the national title, or will they even beat Miami? Time will tell, but if they exhibit a level of focus and level-headedness on par with their performance this weekend, they will give opponents fits again.