After month off, USU Hockey back to winning
Utah State University hockey players said the second half of the season would be better than the first. On Friday night they made the first step in backing up their promise by defeating Eastern Washington University 5-2 at the Weber County Ice Sheet.
USU didn’t look sluggish after the month-long break, going up 2-0 after the first period on goals by Deryk Anderson and Aaron Burrell.
After playing to a draw in the second period, EWU stormed back in the third period, tying it at 2-2 with 14:47 to go.
Only 22 seconds later USU was back on top after a Paul Amidon goal assisted by defenseman Aaron Sutliff. Miles Hansen scored the next Aggie goal only less than two minutes later off a rebound and Sutliff went in unassisted less than a minute after Hansen for the last USU score to put the Eagles away.
“They just gave me the whole ice,” Sutliff said of EWU’s defense on his unassisted goal.
Sutliff was quick to credit Amidon’s stellar play.
“Most of my success came from him,” he said.
“Sutliff really led the ‘D’,” said USU assistant coach Nate Anderson.
Anderson said his team was high on energy, but a little low on discipline.
USU goaltender John Curl was the “definite star of the game,” said Anderson. He said Curl came up with big saves that held EWU scoreless in the first two periods.
With the win, the Aggies improve to 7-10-4 on the year.
“We’ve got a lot of work to do, but this is a stepping stone,” Anderson said.