February 22, 2024 | SPORTS | By Michael Braithwaite
After capping off a back-and-forth series against No. 16 St. Cloud State University by scoring five goals in the second game, the then-No. 15/16 Tigers took on the No. 2 University of North Dakota Fighting Hawks in a two-game series last weekend at Ed Robson Arena.
Coming into Friday’s matchup, the Hawks had not lost a regulation game in conference play all season, winning their last 21 consecutive regulation games. Goalie Ludvig Persson was second in the conference goals against average and had only allowed more than three goals in a regulation game twice all season.
But the Tigers were not perturbed by those lofty statistics.
Friday night’s game was headlined by Zaccharya Wisdom ’27. The first year forward and NHL draftee had the best game of his burgeoning young career, posting four goals and five total points en route to a 7-1 Colorado College victory.
But while the performance itself was one for the record books, the game meant a little bit more to Wisdom as his mom, Mairri McConnell, was in attendance.
As Wisdom and his brother were growing up in Toronto, Canada, McConnell worked multiple jobs to fund their passion for hockey, sometimes turning off the electricity for days on end and pulling double shifts at work just to pay the bills. In an interview after Friday’s matchup, Wisdom noted just how special it was to have such a performance in front of her.
“I don’t see her too much and when I do it makes me feel good,” Wisdom said. “The fact that she gets to witness something like that, it feels good to make her proud.”
Wisdom’s performance marked the first time that a player has scored four goals in a single conference matchup this year and just the seventh-ever time in National Collegiate Hockey Conference history. But for Tigers head coach Kris Mayotte, the performance did not come as a surprise.
“It was going for him tonight. But you’re not surprised, he’s a good player,” Mayotte said after Friday’s game. “When he’s getting those types of looks, he’s going to score. That’s what he does.”
Despite coming into the game one of the top goalies in the conference, Persson was pulled near the end of the second period after Wisdom’s second goal of the night which put CC up 5-1. Forwards Klavs Veinbergs ’27, Gleb Veremyev ’26, and Tyler Coffey ’24 each scored a goal of their own during the matchup, following Wisdom’s lead to help bring CC to a 7-1 victory.
However, Mayotte was not expecting the same result in the next game.
“We’re going to see a much better version of them tomorrow,” Mayotte said postgame. “We just got to make sure we recover and get prepared.”
Even though the Hawks did keep the game close through two periods of play, they proved to again be no match for the wrath of the Tigers.
After firing seven shots within the first five minutes of play, North Dakota scored on the eighth. But CC immediately fired back, with defenseman Jack Millar ’24 evening the game with a goal of his own not 14 seconds later. The Hawks added another goal near the end of the first period, now up 2-1, but a score from Evan Werner ’27 tied the game again going into the second intermission.
After two periods, North Dakota had a whopping 36 shots on net compared to CC’s 16. Tigers’ goalie Kaidan Mbereko was backing up his consideration for the Richter Award – awarded to the best goalie in the country – with a stellar performance in net, having allowed just two shots by him thus far.
In the third period, the Tigers found their footing and the onslaught began. Not five minutes into the final frame, forward Logan Will ’24 had put CC ahead with a power play goal. Five minutes later, Veremyev found the puck sitting behind Persson in the crease and rebounded it into the net. Exactly a minute later, he did the same thing again, this time off an initial shot from Wisdom that was blocked.
Hobey Baker finalist Noah Laba ’26 lit his infamous “Laba Lamp” with an empty net goal with over six minutes remaining in the contest, and the Tigers closed out a dominant series with a 6-2 home victory behind an astounding 43 saves in net from Mbereko.
“Mbereko was special tonight. He made some five, eight, 10 saves that you shake your head at,” Mayotte said after Saturday’s game. “He was the player of the game, no question about it.”
Even with such dominance over two games, against the second-ranked team in the nation, sweeping North Dakota in a four-game season series for the first time in history, Mayotte remained critical of the team’s performance.
“I don’t even know that we were very good defensively. We kept the puck out of our net but like we talked about that was Mbereko,” Mayotte said. “You’re going to have a ton of adversity in playoff-atmosphere-type games against really good teams … what stands out to me is our ability to do the hard things, do it together and not let the adversity put us on our heels.”
On Monday, the Tigers were re-ranked at No. 10 in the nation by USCHO.com, the team’s highest ranking since 2012. Additionally, Mbereko took home National Collegiate Hockey Conference (NCHC) goaltender of the week honors, while Wisdom won forward of the week and Veinbergs won rookie of the week.
The Tigers will travel to Omaha this weekend to take on the Mavericks in a two-game set. CC’s next home series will be against Minnesota Duluth on March 1 and 2.