The tournament opened with the Fighting Irish trouncing the Chargers of UAH 4-1, propelling Notre Dame to the championship game against the winner of AIC vs. RPI.

At the outset of that game, the Engineers appeared to be more than a match for their opponents. The Yellow Jackets have struggled this season, and were below .500 with a record of 2-4-2. But appearances can be deceiving, and the Yellow Jackets wound up giving RPI more than it bargained for.

Despite the Engineers holding a significant advantage in shots (15-9), it was AIC who struck first. With just seconds left in the first period, AIC’s junior Chad Richardson intercepted a Rensselaer pass and sent it to teammate senior Greg Genovese. Genovese faced RPI junior goaltender Mathias Lange one on one, beating him for the go-ahead score with just two seconds remaining.

In the second period, RPI continued to out-shoot AIC, but could not find the back of the net, and the Yellow Jackets held on to their 1-0 lead.

But in the third, with time beginning to wane, the Engineers found a way to get on the board. As he has so many times this season, sophomore defenseman Peter Merth started making things happen when he ripped a shot off Yellow Jacket junior goaltender Tom Fenton. The rebounded puck found its way to sophomore forward Paul Kerins who buried it with 3:19 remaining in the third. Junior Andrei Uryadov received the secondary assist, while Merth got the primary.

There was be no further scoring in regulation, and the game had to be settled in a shootout. In the tie breaker, host RPI prevailed 2-1, with Uryadov and freshman Tyler Helfrich scoring for the Engineers. Lange saved the fifth and final Yellow Jacket shot to preserve the lead and advance the Engineers to the final game against Notre Dame.

Despite the shootout RPI victory, the game is officially recorded as a tie, as the shootout was for tournament format purposes only. Fenton, who saved 45 shots through three periods and overtime is now 0-4-1, while Lange went to 2-2-2 with only 26 saves.

So with the “win,” the Engineers found themselves heads up with Notre Dame, while AIC and UAH got ready to play each other in the consolation third place game.

It started well for the Engineers, who seemed to break open the game just 5:30 into the second period when senior Jonathan Ornelas scored RPI’s third goal of the game. With the tally, the home ice Engineers held a 3-0 advantage, and looked to be in complete control. Earlier in the first period, freshman Chase Polacek had put RPI on the board just over three minutes into the game after redirecting a shot by Uryadov who in turn received it from senior captain Jake Morissette. Then, at 8:00 in the first period, Tyler Helfrich renewed his presence on the ice with a stylish backhand. The Engineers entered the first intermission with this two goal lead, and were not showing any signs of relinquishing it in the second period.

Hitting the ice hard, RPI put together another attack, developing a five-on-three power play into a goal scoring opportunity where Ornelas executed.

But true to their name, the Irish fought back and delivered the most stunning comeback seen at the Houston Field House in recent memory.

It started emphatically, with Notre Dame’s sophomore Kevin Deeth opening the Irish scoring just 16 seconds after Ornelas’ goal to close the gap to two. Very shortly after that, at 9:20, the Irish scored again, this time via junior Justin White to make it 3-2.

And 3-2 it would stay through second intermission, where the Engineers hoped to regroup and steel themselves for the final stanza.

But the Irish just wouldn’t go away. At 5:59 in the third, Notre Dame scored the equalizer through senior Dan VeNard, the assist going to goaltender junior Jordan Pearce, and then seized the lead with its fourth straight, unanswered, and resounding tally at 16:04.

Notre Dame’s sophomore Ryan Thang delivered the winner, beating Alford high.

With the game 4-3, the Engineers could not put anything together, and time expired on the Engineers and their tournament.

With the win Notre Dame improved to a stellar 12-4-0, while RPI fell to 6-4-3. There were nearly 3000 on hand for the game, an impressive number given that much of the student body was still on Thanksgiving break.