The University of North Dakota will face Quinnipiac in the national championship game on Saturday, April 9th, after defeating Denver 4-2 Thursday night (4/7) in Tampa.

The first period of Thursday's semifinal game was fairly uneventful, with both teams only managing to muster up eight shots on goal between the two of them.

The second period, however, was all UND and, more importantly, all Drake Caggiula, who scored two goals in the period's first ten minutes to give his team a 2-0 lead.

Denver managed to cut the lead to one in the third period, after Will Butcher was able to find the back of the net at 2:50. At 10:51 of the third period, Denver's Matt VanVoorhis was able to tie the game at two a piece.

But, with less than one minute left to play in regulation, Nick Schmaltz was able to corral the rebound and backhand it into the back of the net to send the Fighting Hawks to the national championship game.

An empty netter with less than two seconds to play gave UND the 4-2 victory.

The University of North Dakota will face Quinnipiac Saturday night, April 9th, for the national championship. The puck drops at 7 p.m. CST. You can catch all of the action on ESPN.

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