Lacking luck, and certainly any assistance from the officiating crew, Colorado College tasted yet another gut-wrenching defeat on Friday.

Sophomore sensation J.T. Brown ripped home a one-timer after teammate Travis Oleksuk won a faceoff three minutes into overtime, lifting the University of Minnesota Duluth to a 4-3 sudden-death victory over the Tigers in the opener of their two-game series at AMSOIL Arena.

Brown's golden goal ruined a gritty come-from-behind effort by CC, which erased a 3-0 deficit on tallies in the final 21 minutes of regulation by Alexander Krushelnyski, Mike Boivin and Rylan Schwartz.

Juniors Boivin and Schwartz scored just 1:12 apart midway through the third period, pulling the visitors even after sophomore Krushelnyski started the rally with 23.9 seconds left in the second.

It wasn't enough, though, to keep Colorado College from losing for the fourth time in its last five games and dropping to 13-11-1 in WCHA play, 16-13-2 overall.

The Tigers, who will enter Saturday's rematch tied for fifth in the league standings, are just two  points ahead of seventh-pace St. Cloud State in the battle for a home-ice playoff berth.

The defending national champion Bulldogs, still in the hunt for a regular-season crown, erupted for three red lighters within a span of 4:35 of the middle frame to build their commanding cushion. The first two, by WCHA scoring leader Jack Connolly and freshman winger Caleb Herbert, came during power plays after referees Scott Bokal and Craig Welker disallowed an apparent go-ahead rebond tally by CC captain Nick Dineen at 4:02 of the period.  

Second-place Duluth, now 21-7-5 overall and 15-6-4 in conference play, remained two points behind league-leading University of Minnesota, a 3-2 overtime winner at Nebraska Omaha. UMD out-shot the Tigers by a 41-25 margin, with sophomore goaltender Josh Thorimbert finishing with 37 saves for Colorado College. Senior Kenny Reiter made 22 stops at the other end for the Bulldogs.

Freshman Justin Crandall also scored for Minnesota Duluth during the second-period uprising. Brown's game winner came after CC killed a penalty earlier in the extra session.