GRAND FORKS, N.D. No. 3 North Dakota completed its two-game sweep of No. 6 Denver with a 4-1 win in a hotly contested game tonight in WCHA action before 11,926 fans at Engelstad Arena.

 

The Fighting Sioux (19-8-2, 16-7-1 WCHA) hand the Pioneers (19-10-1, 13-8-1) their fifth consecutive road loss and move into a first-place tie in the WCHA with Colorado College. DU remains third with 27 league points, trailing CC and UND by six points.

 

Joe Finley, Evan Trupp, Andrew Kozek and T.J. Oshie scored for the Fighting Sioux, while Brian Gifford (Moorhead, Minn.) scored the lone goal for the Pioneers. J.P. Lamoureux got the win with 16 saves, while Peter Mannino (Farmington Hills, Mich.) took the loss with 24 stops.

 

North Dakota led 2-0 after dominating the first period. Finley and Trupp scored goals as the Fighting Sioux outshot DU, 13-3.

 

Kozek tallied his fourth goal of the weekend off a faceoff win by T.J. Oshie at 11:46 of the second stanza. Gifford finally put the Pioneers on the board with a nifty goal at 13:14. Tempers escalated at the end of the period and Denver’s Brandon Vossberg (St. Paul, MInn.) and North Dakota’s Kyle Radke were ejected for fighting, while a total of 50 penalty minutes were assessed against the teams.

 

Oshie iced the game with an empty-net goal at 18:50. The Fighting Sioux outshot DU, 28-17, and went 1-for-4 on the power play. DU went 0-for-4 with the man-advantage.

 

Notes: The Pioneers are sixth in the latest PairWise Rankings and third in the WCHA. DU is 2-6-1 in its last nine games. Tyler Ruesegger missed his fourth consecutive game with an abdominal injury. The Pioneers have allowed three or more goals in all 10 losses.