It was almost midnight on Monday, and Anthony Vignieri-Greener was still watching film on Adrian College.
A tired Vignieri-Greener, who watched his UNLV hockey team make back-to-back third-period comebacks in 24 hours to reach the national championship game, saw one thing clearly.
If the Skatin’ Rebels were to have any chance at dethroning the defending national champions, who were making a third straight title game appearance, they would have to get traffic on Adrian goaltender Noah Decottignies.
The traffic came. Dominance, shockingly, followed.
The top team in the American Collegiate Hockey Association resides in Las Vegas.
The Skatin’ Rebels captured their first national championship in program history, winning the Murdoch Cup in a dominant 7-3 win over Adrian on Tuesday at Centene Community Ice Center in St. Louis.
The game was a rematch of last year’s title game, in which Adrian and Decottignies shut out UNLV 3-0.
Decottignies, who was coming off a 43-save shutout on Monday in the semifinals over Minot State, stopped all 41 shots against UNLV last year.
There would be no superhuman effort this time.
UNLV jumped out to a 2-0 lead thanks to goals by doing what Vignieri-Greener preached: screening the goalie.
Defenseman Deven Nagra’s shot from the point beat a screened Decottignies at 10:41, and forward Heath Mensch scored the first of two goals on the power play at 18:18.
UNLV poured it on in the second with Mensch scoring at 3:56, then forward Justin Stathopoulos scored off the rush at 11:23 to make it 4-0.
Mensch had two goals and an assist, and forward Tristan Rand scored twice in the third — including a penalty shot — to put the game away. The Skatin’ Rebels scored six goals on 33 shots.
Goaltender Jeremy Forman made 36 saves and was named the tournament MVP.
The Skatin’ Rebels were the program on the rise that felt they were on the cusp. This year, their eighth at Division I in the ACHA, confidence blossomed early.
It started in December, when UNLV pulled off a massive upset of defending NCAA champion Denver in a 7-6 shootout victory.
The Skatin’ Rebels finished the season 24-1-2 and captured their first Western Collegiate Hockey League championship.
The No. 2 seed, UNLV opened the tournament with a 6-2 win over Arizona on Friday.
UNLV needed two rallies just to make it to Tuesday, both trailing 2-0 in the third period. The Rebels completed a 3-2 overtime comeback Sunday against Maryville, then scored five unanswered Monday to win 5-2 against Liberty.
A magical run needed to end in a magical way. UNLV withstood an Adrian flurry in the first, then dominated once it opened the scoring.
The Rebels had to go through heartbreak to get to the top, losing in the semifinals in 2022, the quarterfinals in 2023, then last year’s championship game.
There’s no heartbreak this time. In its place will go a banner at City National Arena close to the Golden Knights’ Stanley Cup banner.
Maybe next will come a legitimate conversation about Division I status in the NCAA.
Contact Danny Webster at [email protected]. Follow @DannyWebster21 on X.
