DEARBORN -- The puck met the stick of Huron High School's Nick Daze, planted in front of the Lincoln-Milan net, his team up one with three minutes left in a Division 1 hockey regional championship game.

Daze, holding a chance to ice the game, thought to himself what most would.

"I was like, 'Oh my God. I have to put this in. I'll beat myself up forever if I miss this,'" he said.

Daze, a senior forward, didn't let the game-clinching play pass by. He buried the puck into the net to round out the River Rats' 3-1 victory Saturday at the Dearborn Ice Skating Center.

"This was our goal at the start of the year, to win regionals," Daze said. "And it's just awesome to be here."

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The regional title is Huron's first since the early 90's, according to River Rats coach Bill DeGroot. The River Rats move on to face the state's top-ranked team, Detroit Catholic Central, which beat Livonia Stevenson 2-0 in a regional on Saturday. The teams face off in a quarterfinal at 7:25 p.m. on Wednesday at the Ann Arbor Ice Cube.

"We've had teams in the past that have gotten to the regional finals -- very, very good teams -- with many great coaches, many great players," said DeGroot. "This year we were able to come home with the goods. We played as a team, we never stopped. This senior class has been asking for this since June."

One of those seniors, forward Brad Christman, was the tone-setter for the River Rats.

In a defensive-laced first period, Christman opened up the scoring, slipping in a rebound goal with 2:04 on the clock. Daze was credited with the assist.

"With a goalie like Luke Dwyer, it's really important to get that first goal and add on top of that, and just be able to hold a lead and play solid defense," said Christman, who helped Huron do exactly that, adding a goal at 11:05 in the second period on a feed from Embree.

Added Dwyer, "In these playoff games, momentum is huge. If you get the first goal and can get on them early, it obviously helps a lot. It carried throughout the whole game."

But the Railsplitters, after managing just one shot-on-goal in the first seven minutes of the second, sprung to life. Dwyer found himself facing a barrage of shots, leading to Blaze Keider ripping the net at 5:23, tightening the gap to 2-1.

"We knew that they would come back," admitted DeGroot, whose team edged out Lincoln-Milan 3-2 and 3-1 earlier this season.

But the River Rats stunted the Railsplitters' comeback effort in the third period, with help from Daze's game-sealing goal at 2:42.

From there, Dwyer served as the anchor, fighting off an onslaught of shots in the final two minutes, despite his team being outnumbered 6-to-4 due to a Huron penalty and Lincoln-Milan pulling its goalie.

Dwyer, who finished with 18 saves, wasn't fazed.

"I was trying not to watch the clock," he confessed. "When you find yourself watching the clock, you're getting nervous and nervous and nervous. I just tried to keep playing and not really think about how big of a moment it was."

But once the final horn sounded, Dwyer and his teammates and coaches couldn't think about anything other than how big of a moment Huron's regional championship is.

"This is nothing like I've ever experienced before. It's just huge for our program," said Christman.

So huge, DeGroot graciously credits the win to every River Rat team that has taken the ice in the past.

"I'm happy to be a part of it, but this is for everybody who has gone through the program," he said. "And I know the senior class would want that. That's what they dedicated it to. Not only to themselves but the program."

"I'm so proud for them right now. It's indescribable."

Kaleb Roedel is a sports writer for AnnArbor.com. He can be reached at (734)623-2562 and e-mailed at kalebroedel@annarbor.com. Follow him on Twitter @Kaleb_R.