There is enough parity in the Northwest Hockey Conference Red Division, that the team qualifying for the state tournament from the Northwest District may be up for grabs.

The parity was on display Sunday when St. John’s defeated Bowling Green, 4-2, in an NHC Red Division game at the Slater Family Ice Arena at Bowling Green State University.

“It’s been a season where on any given night anybody can win,” St. John’s coach Derrick Stumm said. “This week we saw Perrysburg beat Northview for the first time, we saw Findlay beat BG and AW beat Northview on Saturday night.”

BG coach Connor Rogowski added, “We knew it has been a good league all year. We knew there were no teams you can slide around, and we learned that this weekend with everybody beating everybody.

“It’s all over the place. We have a great league. If you don’t come to work your best every night, you are not going to get the results that you want. That is just the case that we’ve had,” Rogowski continued.

BG, tied with Northview for the 10th spot in the latest state ranking, falls to 19-9-1 overall and 5-3-1 in the Red Division. St. John’s improves to 6-19-2 and 3-5.

“For us, we seem to be peaking at the right time,” Strumm said. “We had a great game against St. Francis — we just came up one goal short and followed that up with a big win against Anthony Wayne and obviously a big win today against BG.”

The Bobcats’ loss does not mathematically eliminate them from a Red Division championship.

However, it weakens BG’s chances for a conference title, trailing defending state champion and No. 2 ranked St. Francis (20-6-1, 8-1) and Findlay (16-7-4, 6-2).

In BG’s loss Sunday, St. John’s scored three goals in the third period, including two on power plays and a third on an empty net, to come back from a 2-1 deficit.

“It’s something I told them I was really proud of, sticking through the adversity and overcoming that to win the game,” Strumm said. “We were down by a goal, and we went into the third period and very easily could have just folded.

“But that is not the mentality that they had today, and we were lucky enough to get a couple goals put into the back of the net. They finished out strong.”

St. John’s forward Carson Perino tied the game at 2-2, assisted by defenseman Max McCanna and forward William Lowery, just two minutes and 37 seconds after the third period faceoff.

Perino scored his second power play goal of the period with 2:59 remaining, off a faceoff in the BG defensive zone to put the Titans up 3-2. Perino was assisted by defenseman Charlie Anderson.

St. John’s forward Ralph Brennan scored on an empty netter with 1.5 seconds remaining.

Brennan sent the puck the length of the ice after BG had pulled its goaltender to have a sixth man skating with 46.2 seconds left in the game.

BG outshot St. John’s, 28-24, but St. John’s goalie Wyatt Farmer made 26 saves and BG senior goalie Gavin Sudlow had 20 saves.

The Titans did outshoot the Bobcats, 11-8, in the first period, and got on the board first as Lowery scored on an assist by Brennan four minutes and 50 seconds after the opening faceoff.

BG sophomore defenseman Drake Joseph evened the score at one goal apiece on a 30-foot shot from the left point, assisted by senior forward Brayden Clauson with 6:10 remaining in the opening period.

In the second period, BG got a little help when St. John’s forward Tyler Meader was sent to the penalty box for tripping, a two-minute minor. The Bobcats took advantage with a power play goal.

BG sophomore forward Cooper Feehan took a pass from behind the net and scored, assisted by junior defenseman Easton Schick, to put the Bobcats up 2-1 with 4:05 left in the second period.

It was Senior Day for the Bobcats, honoring Clauson, Sudlow, forwards Bryce Ebersbach, Alex Lorenzen, Luke Johnson, Nick Powers and Shane Cassin, and defenseman Sean Gollehon.

“You have to give a lot of credit to the seniors for what we have started to build here,” Rogowski said. “We’ve built up the last two years and to being back to a team that’s relevant in the state of Ohio, you have to give a lot of credit to them.

“They’ve been here since day one, since we (coaching staff) came in, and I owe it to them for the credit that we’ve had building the culture back up of Bobcat hockey,” Rogowski continued. “We’re never going to take that away from them.

“I wish that we could have gotten it done today but we are in a little bit of a slump and it’s hard to get out of it. You have to work your hardest go get out of that. We just couldn’t get it done.”