ST. LOUIS — Owen Michaels scored his second goal 26 seconds into the second overtime and Western Michigan beat defending champion Denver 3-2 on Thursday night to advance to its first Frozen Four title game.

Brian Kramer also scored, and freshman Hampton Slukynsky stopped 20 shots for a veteran-laden Western Michigan team making its Frozen Four debut in its 10th NCAA tournament appearance. The Broncos (33-7-1) set a single-season record for victories, extended their winning streak to nine and won after blowing a 2-0 third-period lead.

Western Michigan moves on to Saturday night’s championship game against Boston University, which advanced to its first Frozen Four final in 10 years with a 3-1 win over Penn State in the other semifinal.

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Michaels’ deciding goal came on a rush into the Denver zone with Matteo Costantini driving up the right wing and sweeping the puck into the middle. Michaels took the pass and roofed a shot over the right shoulder of goalie Matt Davis.

“Blacked out a little,” said Michaels, a sophomore from Northville, Michigan. “It was kind of a little bit of a broken play, just saw the puck squirt out to me. I was in the middle of the ice and had some open time and space and figured I’d put it on net. And pretty happy it went in.”

Jared Wright, with the tying goal with 2:39 left in regulation, and Aidan Thompson scored goals, and Davis had 44 saves for Denver (31-12-1). The Pioneers, who have won a tournament-leading 10 titles and two in the previous three years, failed in their bid to become the NCAA’s ninth team to repeat as champion, and first since Minnesota-Duluth in 2018 and 2019.

Pioneers defenseman and Hobey Baker Award finalist Zeev Buium was focused more on how his season ended with a loss than on whether he had just played his final college game. The sophomore, who leads NCAA defensemen with 48 points, has the opportunity to make the jump to the NHL after being drafted 12th overall by the Minnesota Wild last June.

“I don’t know,” Buium said. “It’s tough. We just lost a big game. I hate losing. I love this place more than anything in the world. So I think for now I’m just going to spend time with my teammates and enjoy these days with them, and we’ll see what happens. I’ll have to reflect on these next few days, and I’ll see what happens.”

The game was reminiscent of the last meeting involving the rivals in the championship of the National Collegiate Hockey Conference (NCHC) tournament last month. That time, Western Michigan rallied from a three-goal third-period deficit in a 4-3 2OT win.

The Broncos dominated much of Thursday’s game, with Michaels and Kramer scoring second-period goals and Western Michigan having a 32-8 edge in shots. Zach Nehring had the best scoring chance a minute into the game when he snapped a shot off the crossbar while facing an open right side.

“It’s a focused group. They never lose belief in themselves,” said coach Pat Ferschweiler, who has led the Broncos to a tournament berth in each of his four seasons in Kalamazoo.

“They came in unhappy with the third period. But I think our biggest mistake was not scoring on all our chances in the second,” he added. “Denver has a championship pedigree. They’re going to push and make it hard on you. … But we knew over the entirety of the game, I thought we were the better squad.”

In the other semifinal later Thursday, Boston U. got second-period goals from Jack Hughes and Cole Eiserman, and freshman Mikhail Yegorov stopped 32 shots for the Terriers (24-12-2), who lost in the semifinals in each of the past two years.

Jack Harvey added an empty-netter with a minute left for the Terriers, a five-time champion seeking its first title since beating Miami (Ohio) in 2009. Boston U. fell to Providence in its last title game appearance in 2015.

“We all came here for a reason, to win a national championship, so just thinking about having the opportunity to do that in a couple of days is exciting,” Hughes said. “So it’s a little bit of a relief for now, and then we’re going to get back to work and hopefully win it all.”

Nicholas DeGraves scored 2:15 into the third for Penn State (22-14-4). The Nittany Lions, another Frozen Four first-timer, were making only their fourth NCAA tournament appearance since being established in 2011-12. Arsenii Sergeev made 31 saves in a showdown of Russian-born goalies.

Hughes opened the scoring 1:35 by sweeping in a loose puck after Sergeev was unable to find it sitting in the crease after he stopped Matt Copponi’s initial shot.

Eiserman scored nine minutes later by converting a 2-on-1 break. Cole Hutson drove deep down the left side and swung around to feed a pass back through the crease to Eiserman, who one-timed it into the open side.

Yegorov, preserved the win with several key stops. He got his blocker up to turn aside Dane Dowlak’s shot off a breakaway with seven minutes left in the second period. And the 19-year-old briefly peeked behind him after smothering Jarod Crespo’s hard shot from the right circle with 4:19 left in the third.

Yegorov improved to 11-5-1 since joining BU in January after opening the season in the USHL. He was selected by New Jersey in the second round of the NHL draft in June.

Terriers coach and two-time Stanley Cup winner Jay Pandolfo has reached the Frozen Four a combined seven times, four as a player and in each of his three seasons behind the BU bench. He was a member of the 1995 championship team coached by U.S. Hockey Hall of Famer Jack Parker.

“I was fortunate to play on really good teams when I was a player at BU, and we only won one time, so I have a pretty good understanding of how hard it is to win,” Pandolfo said.

“Certainly came up short the last two years, and I think it’s helped our team to have an understanding of you have to play a certain way if you want to get to that final game,” he added. “Yeah, it feels good to get there, but we certainly hope the job’s not done yet.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.