ASHWAUBENON, Wis. – The St. Olaf College men's hockey team led 3-1 after two periods before sixth-ranked St. Norbert College rallied in the third period to send the game to overtime and scored less than a minute into the extra session to top the Oles, 4-3, in the opening round of the NCAA Division III Men's Ice Hockey Championship Saturday night at Cornerstone Community Center.

In just the second NCAA Tournament appearance in program history, St. Olaf (11-15-3) got goals from first years Tyler Cooper, Parker Casey, and Jonathan Young to open up a 3-1 lead after 40 minutes. Trailing by two goals on its home ice, St. Norbert (24-6-0) scored twice in the third period to extend the game to overtime before Michael Spethmann scored on a breakaway just 56 seconds into the extra session to send the Green Knights to a quarterfinal date at Augsburg on Saturday, March 19.

Cooper gave St. Olaf an early lead less than two minutes into the game by netting his team-leading 14th goal of the season just 1:55 in. The first year fired a shot from near the top of the left circle that St. Norbert goaltender Colby Entz deflected high into the air and the puck came down over the line to open the scoring.

Ten minutes later, Casey doubled the Oles' lead with his sixth goal of the season, as he slotted the puck home after being set up by a backhand pass from first year Eric Brown after Entz made a save to deny Cooper his second goal of the early stages. The Green Knights got one of the goals back on a tally by Evan Cholak at the 14:18 mark, as St. Olaf led 2-1 after one period after outshooting St. Norbert by a 16-14 margin in the opening 20 minutes.

Young tallied the lone goal of the second period with 3:35 remaining to stretch St. Olaf's lead to 3-1 after two periods. The first year's goal came after classmate Connor Kalthoff got the puck to fellow first year Matthew Pointer from behind the net and Pointer slid the puck across to Young for Young's fifth goal in the team's four playoff games.

St. Norbert began its comeback on Liam Fraser's 24th goal of the season at the 4:14 mark, as he snuck the puck in following a scrum in front of the net. St. Olaf killed off a pair of penalties after Fraser's goal but was whistled for a too many men on the ice penalty just after killing off the second penalty to send the Green Knights back to the power play.

Just eight seconds later, St. Norbert struck to tie the game when Brendan Mark fired a shot through a screen for a power-play goal at 12:47 for the tying goal. The score remained tied until Spethmann scored the game-winning goal just 56 seconds into the overtime, sliding the puck five-hole after Peter Bates kicked the puck ahead to spring him on a breakaway. The goal came after sophomore Lukas Haugen denied Bates – the nation's leading scorer – on a breakaway of his own.

Haugen made a career-high 47 saves in the loss for St. Olaf, which was outshot by a 51-26 margin in the game. Entz picked up the victory with a 23-save night for St. Norbert.

The Oles were appearing in the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2006 after winning their second Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (MIAC) Playoffs title to earn an automatic bid into the field.