The Notre Dame Academy Tritons beat the Bay Port Pirates Saturday night to advance to the state tournament with two goals from Jason Reynolds, but it was Nate Eminger that people were talking about. The Pirates goalie stopped all 27 shots through the first two periods to keep Bay Port’s upset hopes alive. The Pirates only managed to put 6 shots on the Tritons’ Chris Nell during that time.

The game started out fast and furious with hard charges being made up and down the Tri-County Arena ice sheet in Neenah. It started out as a physical game, with the Pirates taking it to the smaller and quicker Tritons. But Notre Dame has more team speed and Bay Port had to work harder just to keep up. That hard work took its toll as the period wore on and the action shifted to being played mostly in the Pirates end. But that’s where Eminger lives, and he came ready to play.

Midway through the first period, NDA attacked with a 2 on 1 chance and Brett Gruber got off a close shot. The puck hit Eminger, flipped up in the air over Eminger and hit him in the back on the way back down. He must have felt the puck through his pads and he spun around and batted the puck away with his glove before it could go in the net, prompting more than one spectator to comment that he “pulled that one out of his (butt).”

By the end of the first period, Eminger had stopped 12 shots, while Nell faced but 2.

With a late penalty in the first period, and another early in the second, Bay Port played the first four minutes of the period short-handed, so they couldn’t get the early jump that they had at the start of the game. As the second period wore on, the Pirates again wore down, and the action shifted back to their own zone, where Eminger’s quick feet and reflexes kept it even.

Notre Dame’s best chance in the second was a breakaway opportunity by Sam McCormick, but Eminger came out to challenge him and the puck ended up in Nate’s glove. Notre Dame out-shot Bay Port 15-4 in the second period.

Bay Port started the third period on the power play and got their first real scoring chances of the game, but Chris Nell denied them on both. After killing the penalty, the Tritons got the puck into the Pirates zone and Riley Christensen threw the puck from the corner to the front of the net. Jason Reynolds was there for a quick redirect and the first goal of the game at 2:03.

Bay Port got another chance on a power play late in the period, when they made a cross-ice pass to Logan Froberg who was parked on the back door. Nell slid across the crease to get his left leg over just in time to maintain the Triton’s lead.

Reynolds added an empty net goal with 1:08 remaining to seal the deal and send Notre Dame Academy back to Madison with their third Section Five title in a row.