Coming off a tough loss to Division II Liberty University, the CNU Captains ice hockey team hoped to turn it around with a win on Friday against the University of Richmond Spiders.

Despite a hat trick by their captain, junior Brian Bowser, and a furious comeback in which they tied the game with a minute and a half to go in regulation to send it into overtime, the Captains came up short by a score of 6-5.

It all came down to a five minute overtime period.

First to score, and it’s game over.

Several minutes into overtime, the Captains got caught up ice with only Bowser back in the CNU end and two Richmond players bearing down on him.

Bowser couldn’t defend them both, and they ended up putting the puck behind junior goalie Chris Wingo for the win.

But the real story of the game was not the overtime period, but rather what led up to that.

The Spiders came out hard in the first period and quickly put the Captains back on their heels, dictating much of the play in CNU’s end and preventing the Captains from clearing the puck or generating many scoring opportunities.

The game stayed scoreless only because of some fantastic saves by Wingo, several of them from point-blank range.

He also smothered one shot that clanked loudly off the post during a Richmond power play.

“The first shot that rang off the post got my legs under me,” Wingo said. “I saw the player had made a move past one of our penalty killers and then had a lot of time to shoot but I was temporarily screened. Luckily, it hit off the post and I heard it to my right and junior defenseman John Dalziel made a great play by tying up the man long enough for me to look back and cover it.”

By all rights, CNU should have been losing going into the locker room after the first period.

Yet on a power play goal late in the period by Dalziel, they went in with a 1-0 lead.

CNU rode that momentum going into the second period, coming out a lot stronger than they did in the first.

Wingo thought the locker room chat made a difference.

“A lot of what was said during the first intermission was about finishing checks and making smart passes,” he said. “It was positive, we came out more focused.”

Commanding most of the second-period action, the Captains were able to extend their lead to 3-1 on two goals by Bowser, with freshman forward Ryan Dove and junior forward Bryce Evason assisting on both.

Bowser’s second goal was on a hard wrist shot from just inside the Richmond blue line.

The third period proved to be the turning point.

With the game well in hand and a two-goal lead, CNU inexplicably began to lose its composure, and in a span of just a few minutes took a rash of penalties that at one point had four Captains in the penalty box for various infractions, including a bench minor.

Richmond seemed to have a perpetual power play, including lengthy five-on-three advantages, and they put in two power-play goals within 90 seconds to tie the score, and then notched another goal to go up 4-3.

The Captains hardly quit, however, and stepped up again to tie the game at four on Bowser’s third goal, as he completed his hat trick.

But Bowser then was called for almost back-to-back penalties, and the Spiders again took the lead on a power-play goal while he was in the box.

As chants of “Let’s go, Captains” echoed in the crowded Hampton Roads IcePlex, time wound down to under two minutes and the Captains needed a big play to stay in the game.

They got it from Evason, who jammed the puck into the net to send the game into overtime.

Unfortunately, the Captains could not score in the overtime period, and Richmond got a break on what proved to be the game-winning goal.

Wingo explained that Richmond had just dumped the puck down the ice for what should have been an icing call.

Knowing that, the Captains players who were up ice did not bother to rush back.

But as the puck skidded toward the CNU goal line, one of the referees did not get out of the way fast enough and the puck hit his skate short of the goal line — with only Bowser and two Richmond players anywhere near it.

“Everyone was caught up rink,” Wingo said. Bowser tried to clear the puck, but the two Richmond skaters finished the play and gave their team the win, 6-5.

Despite coming up just short, at the end CNU showed a lot of heart, which they looked to take into their next game on Saturday at Liberty University, losing 10-1.

The Captains next home game is Oct. 20 versus their rivals, the Old Dominion Monarchs.