Aggies unravel in 3rd period
After jumping to a 2-0 lead in the first period, USU couldn’t hang on to their lead and allowed the San Jose Spartans back into the game, eventually losing 5-2 Thursday night in the Eccles Ice Arena.
“We lacked intensity today. We’ve got a lot of guys that aren’t feeling too well. Our main guys were doing what they need to do but we need more shots than that,” Matt Geer said. Geer tipped in a Scotty John slapshot from the point for a power play goal.
“We won the face-off back to Berto, Berto passed it over to Scotty and I just went straight to the front of the net, Scotty made a good shot and I just got the tip,” Geer said.
Walter Voisard scored the other USU goal on a nice assist from Brandon Latham.
“Latham got the puck on the boards, got it out to me, I cut around the first defenseman and then just took the shot right under the goalies arm and he didn’t even see it,” Voisard said.
After two periods of relatively penalty-free hockey, things snowballed on the Ags in the third period as they were attempting to come back down 4-2 with plenty of time left.
Just when the USU intensity arrow seemed to be pointing up again and the Ags were creating some shots, penalties sucked the life out of the would-be rally and made it an easy lead for the Spartans to defend.
USU was charged with penalties as diverse as roughing, interference, elbowing, boarding, unsportsmanlike conduct, and game misconduct in the third period.
“I think we get caught up a little bit in the ref situation. I know I got caught up in it. We’ve got to learn to let things go,” Geer said.
Voisard said USU needs to find a way to keep their intensity up for all three periods.
“We come out with intensity in the first period, but in the second period we seem to let down and we need to keep up our intensity. We never keep up our intensity,” Voisard said.
-graham@cc.usu.edu