ALBANY, N.Y. – The great thing about freshmen is that they don't know any better.

Oh sure, they've heard the stories. They've even seen the tapes. But they haven't been on the ice to suffer through the season-ending heartbreak. And make no mistake there's been a lot of that surrounding the Boston College hockey team over the past three seasons.

	This is the frustration freshmen can cause. Michigan's Mike Komisarek shows his anger after Boston College's Ben Eaves scored an empty-net goal late in the third period.

There was the 3-2 overtime loss to Michigan in the 1998 title game, the 2-1 overtime defeat against Maine in the '99 semifinals and last year's 4-2 loss to North Dakota in the championship.

So a couple of freshmen, who think they're supposed to win every game and aren't worried about exorcising any demons, were just what the Eagles needed Thursday night in their national semifinal game against Michigan.

"We haven't experienced the losses but it's always in the back of our mind to win it for the seniors," freshman Chuck Kobasew said. "They've been through an emotional three years in the Frozen Four."

Kobasew and Ben Eaves provided all the offense for BC in a 4-2 win over Michigan and helped the Eagles advance to Saturday night's title game against North Dakota (7 p.m. ET, ESPN).

If that matchup sounds familiar, it will mark a repeat of last year's championship in Providence and it will be the first time since 1976 that the same two schools have played in the title game in consecutive years.

This is the Eagles' fourth consecutive trip to the Frozen Four, and the seniors will be playing in their third championship game. But it wouldn't have happened without the freshmen.

Kobasew, the Hockey East Rookie of the Year, opened the scoring when he took a feed from fellow freshman Tony Voce and beat Michigan goaltender Josh Blackburn at 10:06 of the first period.

Then four minutes later on the power play, Eaves redirected a Bobby Allen wrister up and over the left shoulder of Blackburn at 14:29.

Kobasew gave BC a 3-0 lead when he redirected a Rob Scuderi slap shot and beat Blackburn through the five-hole at 11:38 of the second period. It was Kobasew's 26th goal of the season.

"Brooks had the puck back at the point and I think he moved it to Scud a couple of times," Kobasew said about the game-winner. "I just came in from the far left-hand boards and I thought I was open so I just tapped my stick down a couple of times and gave him a holler and he gave me a great pass right on the tape."

Finally, Eaves scored his 13th of the season when he flipped the puck into an empty net at 19:40 of the third period to seal the two-goal victory.

"It shows that you can't key on one line or one set of people" captain Brian Gionta said. "Everybody can contribute and obviously it showed tonight. The freshmen have been putting in great efforts all year long and it paid off again tonight for us."

"The freshman class has been a big part of our success," goalie Scott Clemmensen added. "More often than not it seems like those big goals are coming off the sticks of freshmen."

Through 42 games, the BC freshmen class has scored 61 of the team's 171 goals (36 percent).

The freshmen, especially Kobasew and Eaves, were the focus of much of the postgame praise. But all they wanted to do was to talk about the seniors.

"We really want to do this for the seniors on our team and everyone who's been involved in the whole process," said Eaves, who also was named to the Hockey East all-rookie team. "It's really tough to get here, so you really want to take advantage of it.

"I can really see that in our team. I can see it in our sense of desperation – especially for those seniors who lost that 3-2 overtime game to Michigan. I can see it in their eyes that this is their last chance."

Thanks to the freshmen the seniors have one final chance.

David Albright is a senior editor at ESPN.com.