Frankie Gregorini opened the scoring for Mt. St. Joseph’s with an unassisted power-play goal at 14:20 of the first period, firing a wrist shot through a screen from the top of the left face-off circle. O’Connell’s Sean Ostrowski evened the score with 12 seconds left in the first stanza. Carter Thompson picked up an assist on the play.

O’Connell dominated the second period as Ostrowski fed Jack Ahlstrom to put the Knights up, 2-1, at 9:15 and Alex Vouras ripped a wrister over the shoulder of Gaels goalie Connor Churko with just over a minute and half left in the period. Kyle Leverone and Ben Gibbons assisted on the play.

Mt. St. Joseph’s drew within a goal when Nick Komisar chipped the puck past the oncoming O’Connell defenseman at the offensive blue line, right to the onrushing Michael Garvin. The junior forward skated in alone and scored on a breakaway just 2:36 into the third period.

Vouras regained the two-goal lead for the Knights when he scored on a power play less than two minutes later. Ryan Lenaghan and Ben Gibbons assisted on the goal.

The Gaels, however, would not go away. Harrison Pantoulis and Jorrdan Osafo assisted on Scott Cremen’s wrister from between the circles with just over seven minutes to go in the game to draw Mt. St. Joseph’s within one again, 4-3, which began a wild finish.

O’Connell’s Jake Smith was awarded a penalty shot when he was hooked from behind on a breakaway in the waning minutes of the contest. But rather than close out the victory, Smith was stopped by Connor Churko, who poke-checked the puck away before Smith could get a shot off.