BOSTON – The Boston University Terriers gave the Northeastern Huskies all they could handle in the opening semifinal game of the Hockey East Championship tournament on Friday night.

It still wasn’t enough.

Zach Solow tied a Huskies program record with his sixth game-winning goal of the season at the 15:44 mark of overtime, taking advantage of a turnover in the Terriers defensive zone and burying a wrist shot from the slot past Boston University goaltender Jake Oettinger to advance Northeastern to the title game on Saturday and eliminate the defending champions with a 2-1 win.

Even with an NCAA Tournament bid having long since been locked up, Huskies head coach Jim Madigan stressed the significance of winning the conference championship regardless.

“I’m thrilled we’re in the championship game (Saturday), that’s where we wanted to be,” Madigan said. “We pride ourselves in this being the best league in college hockey. It’s a hard league, and it’s important for us to win this championship.”

The Terriers had appeared to take a 1-0 lead late in the first period when his wrist shot through traffic in front seemed to cleanly beat Cayden Primeau, but goaltender interference was called, overturning the call on the ice and taking away some badly needed momentum from Albie O’Connell’s BU club.

“It was unfortunate on that goal being disallowed, and we had four pipes,” he said. “We had some chances that we didn’t capitalize on…it’s a fine line between winning and losing. I thought our effort was good, I thought we played well, but congrats to Northeastern on moving on.”

Boston University got out to a 1-0 lead – for real this time – when Ty Amonte roofed a shot over a sprawled out Primeau after a net-mouth scramble in front at 7:39 of the first period. However, Tyler Madden’s goal just 16 seconds into the third period tied the game back up at 1-1, and after Lincoln Griffin’s apparent go-ahead goal in the third period was also called off for goaltender interference, set the stage for Solow to work his magic one more time.

After a potential hand pass at center ice before entering the zone went uncalled by the officials, Kasper Kotkansalo took the puck from Oettinger behind the net and had space to skate up the ice, but instead rimmed it around the right wing wall, where it was intercepted by Brandon Hawkins, fed to Solow in the slot and ripped past Oettinger to end the Terriers season.

“That was a tough play at the end,” O’Connell said. “There was one guy forechecking and we had three guys back, and we had the goalie, and we just kind of rimmed the puck. That’s what happens when you’re tired, you make mistakes. We got caught up in a long shift, and instead of just holding on to it, he got rid of it. They capitalized on a big play, and you’ve got to tip your cap to them, they made a play in a critical time of the game.”

Northeastern moves on to face Boston College in Saturday night’s final -- which can be seen on FloSports at 7 PM – where the Huskies look to win their second Hockey East Championship in the last four seasons.

“We’ve got a lot of momentum right now, that was a huge team win,” Solow said. “I’m really proud of the guys and how we came out and responded after the first, and we’re going to take it into (Saturday) night and hopefully get another win.”