On an emotional senior night, the San Diego State Aztecs defeated the UC San Diego Tritons by a score of 6-2 in the season’s final game.

The game was a special crosstown exhibition between the D-1 Aztecs and D-2 Tritons.

Before the puck drop, the team celebrated its seven seniors: captain Marcus Kim, assistant captains Lucas Bellig and Luke Desmarais, Nolan Conrad, Toby Petrus, Sean Devaney and Gavin O’Bryan.

“I think I’m most proud of the changes we made over the last three years to improve the program,” Conrad said. “I think the way I came in definitely improved significantly on my way out… we helped set this club up for much better success in the future.”

The start of the first period was a largely back-and-forth affair with no teams getting sustained offense.

SDSU outplayed UCSD for most of the period with strong puck possession, but they were unable to get the puck past Triton goaltender Isaac Laddon.

With 26 seconds to go, the Tritons scored the first goal of the game on a deflection by defenseman Peter Dukakis that got past Aztec goaltender Nick Heinzle to take a surprising 1-0 lead.

To start the second period, the Aztecs implemented a goalie change with Liam Dee coming in for Heinzle.

Laddon continued to make save after save as the Aztecs came out to start the second, firing several shots at him to keep it 1-0 UCSD.

After a long period of offensive zone time for the Aztecs, forward Drew Gunderson drew a tripping penalty to put them on the power play. SDSU would not score on the power play as they were still searching to put the puck past Laddon.

No matter what quality of shot or where the Scarlet and Black shot the puck, they could not buy a goal as the score remained 1-0 UCSD.

With a little over two minutes to go, the Aztecs finally got their first goal of the game on a shot by forward Nick Grigoropoulos for his second of the year to tie the game at 1-1.

In a move to get all three SDSU goalies to have a period of action, Brody Hsiao replaced Dee in the net to start the third period.

The Aztecs would take a 2-1 lead on a perfect tic-tac-toe passing play with forward Mason Brown scoring his team-leading 8th goal of the season and defenseman Cameron Ferraz and Bellig getting credit for the assists.

In his final game, Petrus’s one-time shot got past Laddon to double the lead on the powerplay for his second goal of the year.

UCSD got within one after Sohrab Shamloo’s breakaway goal on a wrist shot that went off the post on Hsiao’s glove side.

SDSU forward Brandon Grant was left wide open in the slot and he capitalized on the opportunity to make it a 4-2 lead for the Aztecs. A minute later, Ferraz went coast-to-coast to score a brilliant goal to triple the lead and put the Scarlet and Black up 5-2.

With eight minutes to go, defenseman Blake Branon and Shamloo got into a fight after their emotions got the best of them, with the raucous crowd at KROC Center Ice cheering them on.

Bellig scored on a breakaway in his final game with five minutes remaining to give SDSU a 6-2 lead, which they would hold until the final horn.

“We started D-2 my freshman year and coming up to D-1, I’m most proud of how close we’ve stayed,” Bellig said. “It’s hard marking that transition with the same group of guys, but battling the adversity and the stories of us being together and the home games has been more than I could ever ask for.”

After the win, the Aztecs finish the season with a 5-23-0-1 record, while the Tritons finish their season 6-16-0-0.