LAKE PLACID -- With just 4:27 gone in Saturday night's NCAA Division III Tournament semifinal, Plattsburgh State coach Bob Emery had seen enough.

Elmira College had jumped out to an early 2-0 lead and an irate Emery called a timeout. His words to the Cardinal players certainly didn't include how nice they looked in their red jerseys.

Plattsburgh State managed to right the ship and skate to a 6-3 victory over the Soaring Eagles to advance to the Division III national hockey championship game for the first time since the 2000-01 season.

The Cardinals will play St. Norbert, an impressive 3-0 winner over Norwich University, today at 4 p.m. at Herb Brooks Arena at the Olympic Center.

Elmira (20-4-5) grabbed the lead just 1:59 into the contest. The Soaring Eagles won a faceoff in the Plattsburgh State end and Derrick Ryan scored on a rebound from between the faceoff circles.

Then, at 4:27, the Soaring Eagles made it 2-0 when a shot from the point was deflected into the net by Rusty Masters for a power-play goal.

That's when Emery took the timeout.

"We were beating ourselves," he said. "We gave up one goal when we lost a faceoff in our end and another when we took a bad penalty.

"We were a minus-two the way I saw it, rather than Elmira being a plus-two."

"I was screened on one of the goals and the other was tipped in," said Cardinals goaltender Bryan Hince. "There wasn't a lot I could do about that.

"But I felt I was able to make the key stops when needed -- and that's what I'm supposed to do."

The Cardinals then responded and battled back to tie the score at 2 after one.

Dylan Clarke scored from in close at 10:48 to bring the Cardinals (25-4) to within a goal. Then, at 14:29, Riley Hill tallied a power-play goal on a tip-in in front to pull Plattsburgh State even.

"We didn't want to be down 2-0 going into the second period," Clarke said. "We were able to make it 2-2 and just rolled from there."

"We were pumped going into the dressing room after the first period," said Cardinals' forward Andrew Willock. "We were then able to start dominating down low and play our game. That was key to our success."