Aggie hockey beats Weber, San Jose; falls to BYU
The Utah State hockey club ran the Weber State Division II team out of its own house Saturday by scoring six third-period goals on the way to a 9-4 win.
Jacob Guttormsen scored three goals for the Aggies, all of which came in the first two periods.
“We were so much more prepared for this game than we were for BYU,” Guttormsen said. “We just came together as a team. We knew we had to win this game.”
With the score tied at 3-3 early in the third period, the Aggies capitalized on a delayed penalty on the Wildcats to give USU the lead for good.
A Weber State player was thrown out of the game midway through the third period for making an obscene gesture toward the referees.
He was originally called for a two-minute penalty before the official changed the call to a game misconduct.
When the player found out, he threw the penalty box water bottle into the official scorer’s box. Then on his way off the ice, he skated over to the Weber State goal and threw his goalie’s water bottle to the other end of the ice.
The Aggies were helped by some incredible fan support, as there was more cheering for USU than for Weber State, despite the game being played in Ogden.
“It’s so cool to have more fans on their home rink,” said Aaron Burrell. “It’s like we have two home rinks so it’s pretty neat.”
Utah State Head Coach Jerry Crossley said, “We have the best fans.”
The win over Weber State capped an up-and-down weekend for USU in which it beat San Jose State by nine, lost to BYU for the first time ever then rebounded by routing its arch-rival.
“I’m hoping that if anything comes out of this weekend the guys will have seen some contrast in preparation and mental stuff before the game and the style of game they tried to play the three different nights and which ones were successful and which ones weren’t,” Crossley said.
Said Burrell, “It could be huge as a learning lesson for the rest of the year. We’re on a high right now. We’re going to take it into practice, have a few good practices and kick [butt] all weekend.”
USU lost to the Provo Icecats for the first time ever 5-3 Friday night in what the team described as its worst performance of the year.
Four of the five Icecat goals came on power plays – three of them with a two-man advantage – and USU could not take advantage of many scoring opportunities throughout the game.
“This is by far the worst loss we could ever have,” said Aggie Nick Haase. “Next time we’re going to kill them. We’re going to remember this.”
Assistant coach Paul Amidon said, “It was a good wake-up call. We were not clicking, we didn’t come to play as a team, we lacked in pre-game preparation and we just played bad.”
Amidon is a former USU player and said he doesn’t remember ever losing to BYU.
BYU established a strong physical presence from the opening face-off that threw the Aggies off their game plan.
“They finished all their checks,” said Aggie defender Ben Froehle. “They came running at us. They were beating us to the puck in our zone and hitting us first before we hit them.”
USU was also hurt by penalties that came at the wrong time.
“The penalties were just crucial,” Haase said. “Every time we had a penalty, they put one in the net. That’s what’s killing us.”
All of the scoring for the Aggies came from Burrell and Robert Hashimoto. Burrell scored twice with both goals being assisted by Hashimoto, who also scored an unassisted goal late in the second period.
With USU trailing 4-2 in the third period, Burrell scored his second goal with 6:42 remaining to get the Aggies within one of the Icecats. But BYU came back and scored their only even-strength goal of the game 34 seconds later to make the score 5-3, which ultimately ended the game for USU.
The game was halted in the second period when Aggie Dave Langlois went down after an Icecat player poked him in the face with the butt end of his stick. No penalty was called on the play and Langlois finished the game.
Thursday, Chris Webber held his old team to one goal as the Aggies ran the score up on the Spartans 10-1 on four Robert Hashimoto goals.
Jacob Guttormsen assisted four goals and Nick Haase scored two and assisted two more for the Aggies.
“Oh man, I felt good today,” Hashimoto said. “I was expecting eight or nine [goals] because it wasn’t me, it was Burrell, Scotty [John] and my defensive partners, our goalie. We were just clicking tonight.”
Crossley was also pleased with his team’s performance.
“That’s better,” he said. “I saw them do some stuff that we’ve been working on and it made a dramatic impact on what we saw on the ice. It’s starting to come together. This is the first game we’ve had in quite awhile that we actually won three periods. We won a complete game.”
This was the first time that Webber has suited up against his old team.
“It was really hard,” he said. “They still love me. I still love them. We had to play disciplined hockey and I think we did. We played as well as we could. This was a huge win.”
Hashimoto started and ended the scoring in the first period by knocking a rebound past SJSU goalie Joe Best with 13:20 remaining and then scoring again with 24.4 seconds remaining off an assist from Burrell.
Hashimoto got his third goal in the second period when he put a slap shot under a jumping Guttormsen and past the San Jose goalie.
About eight to 10 hats littered the ice afterward to honor his hat trick.
USU reached double-digits late in the third period when Ryan Quinn scored after the goalie was misled when his teammate deflected the puck.
Prior to Friday night, the Aggies hadn’t scored 10 or more goals in a game since Nov. 22, 2002 against the University of Oregon when they won 16-2.
Hashimoto led the team in points in that game as well.
The Spartans scored their only goal with 16:28 remaining in the second period when Ryan Richardson found a way to put the puck past Webber.
Webber saved 26 of the 27 shots taken on him.
Burrell scored one and assisted two other goals. John also assisted three goals.
Overall, six different Aggies scored goals on the night.
-bhhinton@cc.usu.edu
Robert Hashimoto takes the puck down ice during last Thursday´s 10-1 victory over San Jose State University. (Photo by John Zsiray)