The Hope College men’s hockey team stunned top-ranked Air Force to claim the American Collegiate Hockey Association Division 3 championship.
Hope scored five goals in the third period to earn the 6-3 comeback title on Saturday night in St. Louis.
It is the fourth ACHA Division 3 title and will be the final one as the team is moving up to ACHA Division 1 next year.
Hope previously won national titles in 2022, 2021 and 2018, and finished the season with a 35-4-1 record.
It just took one goal in the third period to get things going.
“We knew if we could get one, they would start thinking about ‘What if?’ We wanted to put that double in their minds,” Hope coach Chris Van Timmeren said. “We wanted them to think that this team, which won 34 games this year and played really tough competition, is going to be coming. The effort the guys put in after four really hard games — everybody’s tired, we’re tired, they’re tired — we knew if we could keep going for the next 10 minutes we could have greatness.”
After a successful penalty kill early in the third period, Hope cut the Air Force lead to 3-2 on the first three goals from senior defenseman Nolan Holtrop at the 6:04 mark. Freshman right wing Brady Kingsbury and senior defenseman Casen Faustyn were credited with assists.
Kingsbury delivered the equalizer 6 ½ minutes later on assists from freshman left wing Cade Pratt and junior center Jake Onstott (Zeeland).
The Michigan Collegiate Hockey Conference champions then had Air Force scrambling and trailing, 5-3, with two goals in 31 seconds.
At the 13:28 mark, sophomore right wing Griffin Riemersma netted the game-winner off assists from sophomore center Jake Nanna and junior forward Brenden Tarpening.
At the 13:59 mark, Holtrop made it a two-goal game off assists from Pratt and sophomore defenseman Collin Peal.
Holtrop iced the victory with an empty-net goal at the 17:41 mark.
Senior goalie Maclane Schick made 27 saves.
Hope won the fourth time in as many days since dropping the opener of pool play to Michigan State University on Tuesday. The Flying Dutchmen topped Dordt University (Iowa) and Grand Valley State University to advance out of their pool, then knocked off defending national champion and second-ranked in the national semifinals.
The title game appearance was Hope’s fourth in five years and eighth since 2010. The Flying Dutchmen finished national runner-up four times in that stretch and five times overall.
“I hope they remember how dominant we were for the last 15 years here, 10 for sure,” Van Timmeren said. “We had a good team here, played hard, had good sportsmanship and never gave up. No more true than tonight.”
