Sooners Hockey skates into Frosty Four

The Oklahoma Sooners hockey team (28-5-3) beat the Iowa St. Cyclones 3-1 in Delaware at the ACHA National Championships on Sunday afternoon to advance to the Frosty Four.

The Sooners, the No. 2 seed in the ACHA National Tournament, took down #16 Illinois Fighting Illini on Friday afternoon to set up this match up.

Frosty Four is the Final Four of the ACHA National Championships. (Frozen Four and Final Four are trademarks of the NCAA).

Iowa State was able to get on the board first in the first period when Cory Sellers' shot was deflected by Jake Bruhn. Bruhn, a sophomore celebrated originally as if Sellers had scored the goal, but Bruhn finished it off on the deflection.

After numerous chances throughout the first and second periods, it was the third period that the Sooners were able break it open.

Sophomore Derek Tylka had been struggling, sent to the penalty box a few times during the game for silly penalties. He had eight minutes of penalties in the first period alone. Four for tripping, and another for slashing and an unsportsmanlike conduct.

Tylka did redeem himself in the third. He found Jordan Greenberg on a nice heads up play, and Greenberg found the back of the net with 17:09 to go in the final period. Tylka and Bryce Johnson were the ones who got accreditedfor the assists on Greenberg's goal.

Greenberg had a great opportunity on a breakaway goal at the 3:24 mark, but Iowa State goalie, Matthew Cooper, was able to meet him at the point and deny the opportunity.

Off quick passing from Darrell Bolden and Mason Miller, Tyler Jones was able to put the centering past Iowa State's Matthew Cooper. Sooners jumped ahead with 4:38 remaining.

90 seconds later, Jones took the pass from the side of the net and placed it passed Cooper to put the game out of reach for the Cyclones. Oklahoma jumped to the 3-1 lead with 3:05 remaining.

It's the first time in the history of the club that the Sooners will appear in the national semi-finals. The best they've done in previous tournaments. Before, they had reached the quarterfinals on numerous occasions, but they were either upset or couldn't take down a top seed.

The ACHA, American Collegiate Hockey Association, is not funded by the actual university. The players have to pay their way to play. There is a fund to help with most travel experiences. However, they still have to adhere to grades requirements, as any student-athlete would have to keep up with, too. The university is very friendly with the team's use of their logo and name. There is no team memorabilia due to this as well. You can definitely read more about the difference between the two levels, ACHA and NCAA here.

Oklahoma will now play the Robert Morris (IL.) (32-7-2) Golden Eagles on Monday, March 10th at 7 p.m. CST. You can watch the game on FastHockey.com and follow the team's progress on twitter at @OUHockey. The winner gets #1 Arizona St. Sun Devils (36-2-0) or #5 Stony Brook Seawolves (29-5-3) in the National Championship Game on Tuesday evening.