NORTHFIELD, Minn. – The St. Olaf College men's hockey team claimed its first Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (MIAC) sweep in nearly six years by surviving a late rally by Hamline University to pull out a 6-5 win on Saturday evening at St. Olaf Ice Arena.

St. Olaf (8-12-3, 5-6-1 MIAC) built a 6-3 lead early in the third period and still led by three inside the final five minutes, but Hamline (3-14-1, 1-9-0 MIAC) scored a power-play goal with 4:11 remaining and an extra-attacker goal with 33 seconds to go to set up a frantic ending. The sweep was the Oles' first since posting 7-3 and 3-2 victories over Bethel on Feb. 5-6, 2016.

First year Troy Bowditch had the first two-goal game of his collegiate career to lead the way for St. Olaf, which got a goal and two assists from first year Parker Casey a day after he netted the game-winner in overtime in St. Paul. Junior Ashton Altmann, sophomore Brendan Darby, and first year Eric Brown all had a goal and an assist in the win.

Altmann gave the Oles an early lead at the 1:16 mark of the first period, tapping the puck over the line after Walsh nearly scored while getting hauled down on a breakaway. The goal was Altmann's sixth of the season and first year Ethan Hersant collected his team-leading 11th assist of the season after springing Walsh on the breakaway.

St. Olaf doubled its lead to 2-0 inside the first five minutes when Brown scored his second shorthanded goal of the season – his fifth overall – unassisted at the 4:52 mark. Hamline got on the board just 35 seconds later on a power-play goal by Sam Dabrowski and tied the game at 2-2 at the 13:06 mark on a goal by Jackson Bond.

The Oles went back ahead a little over four minutes after Bond's tying goal when Darby tallied his third goal in the last five games at 17:20 of the opening period. St. Olaf carried the 3-2 lead into the first intermission after outshooting Hamline by a 14-3 margin in the period.

Bowditch registered his first goal of the evening on the power play at 6:08 of the second period to give the Oles their second two-goal lead of the game. After Ike Taraszewski halved Hamline's deficit to 4-3 midway through the period, Walsh set up Casey in front with less than five minutes remaining to give St. Olaf a 5-3 lead after two.

Bowditch grabbed his second goal of the game at 5:26 of the third, picking out the top-left corner from the slot to stretch the Oles' lead to 6-3. Hamline started its late fightback on a power-play goal by Carson Simon at 15:49 of the third and Dahl fired the puck home a minute after the Pipers pulled their goalie with 33 seconds left to make it a one-goal game all of a sudden.

After a Hamline timeout, the Pipers got their goalie out for the final 20 seconds but mustered only one off-target shot as St. Olaf held on. Sophomore Lukas Haugen earned the win by stopping 12-of-14 shots over the final 30:07 of the game, while Kevin Lake had 27 saves in the loss for the visitors.

The Oles take on Saint John's on the final weekend of the regular season next weekend, hosting the Johnnies for Senior Night on Friday, Feb. 11 before a Saturday matinee in St. Cloud the following day.