The 3^rd time… isn't always the charm.

Desperately trying to reach its first quarterfinals berth in its 3^rd trip to the American Collegiate Hockey Association Division 1 National Championships, the 12^th-seeded Grand Canyon University D1 Men's Hockey team took defending national champion University of Nevada-Las Vegas to overtime before the Rebels eliminated the Lopes, 3-2, Friday morning in St. Louis, Missouri. It's the 3^rd consecutive year that the Lopes couldn't turn an impressive opening-round victory into momentum that would take them past Round 2, and it's the second straight year the Lopes have gone to extras but come up short. The Rebels narrowly escaped failing to defend their title without posting a win, and move on to Sunday morning's quarterfinal round.
The key to the Lopes' offensive success throughout the 2025-26 season has been quick movement of the puck and a heavy volume of shots at the opposing net. Grand Valley State University found that out the hard way in the Lopes' 6-1 win yesterday – thanks to GCU's 45 shots on goal – but few in the 24-team field understood that fact better than the Rebels. Western Collegiate Hockey League rivals GCU and UNLV squared off four times in the regular season, with the Rebels winning three of them by limiting the Lopes to 27 shots on goal or less in each game – well below GCU's season average. Friday morning, UNLV's defense was even stingier, holding the Lopes to just 22 shots over 69 minutes of play, and shutting out GCU until midway through the 3^rd period.

"Their back pressure was really strong," said Lopes' Head Coach Danny Roy. "They simply didn't allow us to get clean rushes."

The Lopes' backline was nearly as smothering, but couldn't stop UNLV's Brady Estabrook from scoring twice in the first two periods to stake them to a 2-0 lead. The Lopes' eight shots in the 3^rd was a game-high, but the Lopes got even by beating UNLV at their own game. With 8:17 left in regulation, Owen Hanson and Micahlind Pelletier helped the Lopes' Jack Thomas find an open spot, and Thomas fired the puck past UNLV netminder Douglas Wakelyn to get the Lopes on the board. Sensing the Rebels – who are normally excellent at turning one goal into two when they have the opposition on its heels – were shaken a bit, the Lopes pounced again just 89 seconds later, with Hanson and Evan Leden setting up Ben Oakland to knot things up at 2-2. The Rebels spent the rest of the period on the attack, but saw none of their 15 3^rd-period shots fool Lopes' goalie Dmytro Kubrytskyi, and the teams headed to overtime.

Unlike regular season overtimes, which are limited to five-minute sessions before heading to a shootout, the teams got a full 15-minute rest before proceeding with a 20-minute sudden-death overtime. The Rebels' offense picked up where it left off in the 3^rd, with a furious pace before getting only its second power-play opportunity of the game on a GCU penalty with 12:38 left. The Lopes' penalty kill worked for 91 seconds until UNLV's Deven Nagra found the ultimate opening to score the gamewinner.

"We had five strong games against them this year and knew we had a chance," said Roy. "It's so disappointing to be that close; come back the way we did but not be able to finish it off."

Despite the heartbreaking finish, the 2025-26 Lopes hang their hats on a couple of program milestones. Yesterday's victory was GCU's 21^st of the campaign, breaking the record for most wins in a single season by the 2023-24 squad. The finishing overall mark of 21-9 and their 15-5 conference mark are easily the best winning percentages in the history of the program, and the 2^nd-place finish in the WCHL is also a high-water mark for the squad.