A shocked Eric Olsen was glowing from the biggest goal of his inline hockey career.
He had just capped off a hat trick — his second of the Collegiate Roller Hockey League National Tournament in Upland, Calif., last weekend — with an overtime tally against Michigan State University.
The unimaginable goal wasn’t so astounding in the way it was scored as much as when it was scored.
“What was that, like a minute thirty in or something?” Olsen asked his teammates following the win that pushed BU into the Elite Eight.
“No, that was 30 seconds,” his teammates yelled in response.
Understandably, Olsen said later, “I was lost in the moment.”
But, for the Boston University inline hockey squad, being lost in the moment was a natural reaction to a tournament that saw time play all sorts of tricks.
Consider this: the Terriers notched their biggest win of the weekend 30 seconds into overtime; they lost to eventual winner Rochester Institute of Technology, 3-2, with 18 seconds remaining in regulation; and they fell to Purdue University, 5-4, in a decisive third game of the round robin on a buzzer-beater that would have instant replay debating.
The Terriers were surprised by the last-minute tallies, but they weren’t shocked by their more-than-convincing national debut.
It’s deceiving to judge BU’s success by its 2-3-1 tournament record.
With gutsy performances and unflinching confidence, BU didn’t squander a seemingly poor 0-2-1 showing in the round-robin seeding play.
A 4-4 tie against fourth-ranked Pennsylvania State University of Altoona earned BU and a New England league participant its first point in a national tournament game.
BU followed up the confidence-boosting tie with two successive losses. The University of Missouri downed BU, 8-4, and Purdue won out on a questionable call.
“It was different after the round robin,” said junior Kevin Whalen. “We just adjusted well, maybe knowing that it was going to be single elimination.”
The Terriers managed a ninth seed entering single-elimination play and immediately got better.
They upset eighth-seeded California Polytechnic Institute at Ponoma, 10-3, with a five-goal outburst in the third period led by junior Brian Scully.
BU extended its upset streak to two games with the win over Michigan State.
“I knew we had high expectations, but that Michigan State [win] even exceeded them,” Whalen said.
“At that point, we pretty much knew it could have been our tourney if we wanted it to be,” Olsen said.
Junior goaltender Mark Martini, a veteran of one other national tournament during high school, did his part.
He picked up 20 saves in the tie to Penn State-Altoona and a remarkable 49 saves against Rochester.
But Rochester had done its homework.
“They knew how to beat us,” Whalen said. “They scouted us out and shut us down using their speed.
“Most would say it’s good to lose to the actual winner, but it can also be that much harder to take.”
And so the season ended on a note of partial triumph and lots of “what ifs.” Maybe the timing was off.
“Everyone there was probably surprised because they’d never heard of us,” Martini said, “but I thought we were the best team there.”
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