UND’s Seventh Meeting With Denver Will Hold Highest Stakes

The Fighting Hawks have won four of the six matchups between the two teams but Monday's game will be the one that matters most

GRAND FORKS, ND – (KVRR) It might be easy to get caught up in UND’s latest win over Miami this past Friday because Collin Adams didn’t just score 14 seconds into the game, the senior finished with five points, the first time a Fighting Hawk had done that since 2014. But the team has their focus on tomorrow.

They’ve got Denver on the docket Monday evening after the Pioneers beat Omaha on Saturday, 5-4. The green and white won the last three head to head meetings scoring a total of 13 goals, 5 apiece in two of those games. The defense also was in tune with that degree of dominance.. In their series just over a Month ago, UND didn’t allow a goal on ten Pioneer power play opportunities and only allowed two shots in that span. If Brad Berry’s squad is to win their first ever frozen faceoff, he knows they’ll have to approach Denver the right way.

“I think it’s like a playoff intensity,” Berry said. “Obviously there’s a traditional rival in there but at least we had, we played some other teams between now and playing Denver here tomorrow. I think the biggest thing is freshness, we look at it as a new team and again, we got to play with excitement, enthusiasm, and tenacity tomorrow.”

“You know, we haven’t played them recently so and we got to watch them last night, a bunch of us came during the game and watched them vs Omaha,” said senior defensemen Matt Kiersted. “You know, we’re just excited. It’s the semifinals.”