Plymouth, MI – The Dubuque Fighting Saint (30-14-2-0, 62 pts) finished a weekend sweep over the USA NTDP U17s (3-22-2-0, 8 pts) with a 6-2 win on Saturday night.
After trailing 2-1 into the second period, the Fighting Saints erupted for four goals in the middle frame to take the lead. The stretch started with Michael Barron's 50th-career goal early in the frame. Barron's goal came on the power play and the most-experienced Fighting Saint tied the game. Barron became the seventh Fighting Saint in Tier-I history to reach 50 goals and is tied for the fifth-most goals in team history.
Just 1:20 later, Caden Dabrowski scored for the third-straight game to give Dubuque a 3-2 lead in the first four minutes of the second period. Dubuque never surrendered the lead after that.
Later in the second, the Saints capitalized with a pair of goals on a five-minute major power play. The penalty, called on Carter Meyer, was called for checking from behind at 4:42 of the second.
Eetu Orpana and Teddy Merrill scored on the major power play to extend the Dubuque lead to 5-2 before the halfway-point of regulation.
After USA took a 2-0 lead in the first period, Colin Frank scored his 24th of the season to bring the Saints within one before their hot stretch in the second. Frank became the 17th Fighting Saint to reach 150-career games played on Saturday.
The Saints finished the night with three power-play goals on four chances and stopped all three penalty kills it faced to finish a perfect weekend on the kill.
Dubuque finished the season series against the U17s with four wins in four games, scoring 31 total goals. The Saints end the weekend in second place in the Eastern Conference, two points ahead of Green Bay before a meeting between the teams on Friday in Dubuque.
