UAA's dramatic road breakthrough in a 3-2 overtime celebration against No. 5-ranked Colorado College on Saturday night was generated by essential elements largely absent for the Seawolves this season.

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Wiles

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Naslund

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Olthuis

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Namely, they received stellar goaltending, showed remarkable resilience, in at least one regard won the battle of special teams and received goals from guys other than the usual suspects.

Rookie center Daniel Naslund scored one minute into extra time to earn the Seawolves their first Western Collegiate Hockey Association road win of the season. The Seawolves (6-10-0, 4-8-0 WCHA) became the last club in the 10-team league to win a league game in a hostile rink.

They prospered on the strength of senior Jon Olthuis' 26 saves, two goals and a helper from junior winger Sean Wiles, and stingy penalty killing in the second half of the third period. They killed three power plays by a deadly man-advantage unit in a span of just 5 minutes, 7 seconds.

Even then, the Seawolves had to rebound emotionally from the Tigers' last-minute strike in regulation. With freshman goalie Joe Howe (32 saves) on the bench for a sixth attacker, Colorado College's Stephen Schultz scored with 32 seconds left to forge a 2-2 tie at the World Arena in Colorado Springs.

But Naslund's second goal of the season allowed the Seawolves to pack two points in the standings in their collective equipment bags for the trip home today.

Coming off a 5-0 loss to the Tigers on Friday, the Seawolves generated a season-high in shots with 35 to Colorado College's 28.

Defenseman Nate Prosser staked the Tigers to a 1-0 lead seven minutes into the second period when he scored on a power play, which is nothing new for Colorado College. The Tigers rank second in Division I in power-play efficiency at 30.5 percent.

But Wiles scored with just 33 ticks left in the period to create a 2-2 deadlock. And then he scored just 1:23 into the second period to give the Seawolves a 2-1 lead and bag his second two-goal game of the season. After scoring just three goals in 45 games his first two seasons at UAA, Wiles has scored five goals in 14 games this season. He is tied with the injured Josh Lunden -- the senior winger missed his fourth straight game with a shoulder injury -- for second among Seawolves in goals behind team leader Kevin Clark (7).

Freshman winger Mickey Spencer and senior defenseman Trevor Hunt both recorded assists on Wiles' strikes.

The Tigers (10-3-1, 7-2-1), who remained tied with Denver for the WCHA lead, were afforded glorious opportunities to tie the game in the second half of the third period. With UAA's Nick Haddad off for interference and Craig Parkinson boxed for hooking just 17 seconds later, the Tigers enjoyed a 5-on-3 power play for 1:43.

During those two power plays, Olthuis made four saves, defenseman Nils Backstrom blocked two shots and captain Jared Tuton blocked a shot.

Even though the Seawolves' power play continued to prove dismal -- they didn't score on five chances Saturday and have converted on just 9.9 of man advantages -- holding the Tigers to one power-play goal on three chances proved a special-teams victory.

UAA's win was its third against a highly ranked team -- the Seawolves beat North Dakota, then ranked No. 2, and also beat Denver, which was ranked No. 2 in one national poll and No. 3 in another.

The Seawolves returned to eighth place in the WCHA, ahead of Minnesota and Michigan Tech, and just one point behind seventh-place Minnesota State-Mankato.

Seawolves notes

Junior defenseman Luka Vidmar sat out the game after suffering a knee injury Friday. He will be evaluated when the Seawolves return home, but is expected to miss significant time.

Junior goalie Bryce Christianson suffered a bruised knee Friday.

UAA next entertains St. Cloud State, which is tied for fourth place with Wisconsin and North Dakota, on Friday and Saturday to close out the first half of the season. After that, the Seawolves do not play for more than a month and open the second half with league series at Denver and Michigan Tech.

Find Doyle Woody's blog at adn.com/hockeyblog or call him at 257-4335.

UAA 0 1 1 1 -- 3

CC 0 1 1 0 -- 2

First Period -- None. Penalties -- Currier, UAA (tripping), 4:41; Boivin, CC (interference), 5:36; Schultz, CC (hooking), 9:37; Portwood, UAA (kneeing), 16:28; Hall, CC (slashing), 18:50.

Second Period -- 1, CC, Prosser 2 (Rapuzzi, Schultz), 7:38 (pp); 2, UAA, Wiles 4 (Spencer, Hunt), 19:27. Penalties -- Testwuide, CC (roughing), 6:24; Clark, UAA, double minor (tripping, cross-checking), 6:24; Guentzel, CC (unsportsmanlike conduct), 11:04; Spencer, UAA (unsportsmanlike conduct), 11:04; Overman, CC (tripping), 14:00; DeBoer, CC (slashing), 14:44.

Third Period -- 3, UAA, Wiles 5 (Spencer, Hunt), 1:23; 4, CC, Schultz 2 (Prosser), 19:28. Penalties -- Haddad, UAA (interference), 9:54; Parkinson, UAA (hooking), 10:11; Clark, UAA (boarding), 13:01.

Overtime -- 5, UAA, Naslund 2 (Grant, Wiles), 1:00. Penalties -- None.

Shots on goal -- UAA 11-15-7-2--35. CC 13-6-9-0--28.

Power-play Opportunities -- UAA 0 of 5; CC 1 of 6.

Goalies -- UAA, Olthuis, 3-5-0 (28 shots-26 saves; CC, Howe, 9-2-1 (35-32).

A -- 7,121 (7,343). T -- 2:23.

Referees -- Don Adam, Scott Bokal. Assistant referees -- Scott Staudte, Tim Swiader.

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