Puck stops short for USU

A huge upset came up just short as the struggling Utah State hockey team nearly beat the Weber State Division-I team, losing 3-1 at the Eccles Ice Arena on Dec. 17.

WSU was without six of its best players. Ian Soldano, Eric Slaughter, Aaron Dufford and Nick Micek were suspended due to incidents in their previous game. And WSU team captain Eric Milliron and David Lorenzen had gone home for the winter break early.

Aggie Robert Hashimoto said it was still the WSU D-I team.

“They were missing players and so were we,” he said. “This was a great way to finish off the semester.”

USU goalie Greg Finatti had a career night in net, saving 44 of the 46 shots taken on him.

“He played phenomenal,” Hashimoto said. “He stepped it up. We all stepped up.”

The Wildcats took a 1-0 lead in the first period on a breakaway goal with 59.6 seconds remaining.

Neither team would score again until the 5:50 to play in the third period when WSU slipped a rebound past Finatti to give the Wildcats a 2-0 lead.

But USU wouldn’t give up. Just 48 seconds later, Hashimoto would score on a breakaway while the Aggies were shorthanded to make the score 2-1.

Later in the period, Ryan Osterheldt came literally inches from tying the game. His slap-shot deflected off the WSU goalie, hit the top crossbar and bounced on top of the net. Osterheldt said if the goalie had been two inches closer to him, that shot would have went in.

WSU would score on an empty net as time expired to make the final score 3-1.

Utah State 4, WSU D-II 3 Dec. 9WSU D-II 3, Utah State 2 Dec. 10

The Utah State hockey club ended the fall semester by losing seven of its last eight games, capped by a 3-2 loss to the Weber State Division-II squad on Dec. 10 at home after beating the same team the night before in Ogden.

The loss was the second of the year to the WSU D-II team. Prior to this season, the Aggies had never lost to the lower division Wildcats.

USU beat them the night before.

After being swept at a tournament in Las Vegas by UNLV and BYU, neither of which were ranked, USU went on the road to play the WSU D-II squad and won 4-3 behind a strong outing in goal by Finatti.

All of the scoring happened in the first two periods as Finatti shut out the Wildcats in the third to seal the Aggies’ first win since Nov. 17 at Washington.

“It was just fine,” Finatti said. “I was mad about getting sniped [in the first two periods]. I knew if I kept them out of the net, we were going to win.”

USU took a 3-0 lead after the first period. Aaron Shimmel scored off a pass from Parker Richards and Hashimoto scored one minute later on a breakaway pass from William Winsa to give the Aggies a 2-0 lead. Hashimoto would find the back of the net again with 5:05 to play in the first.

But the Wildcats wouldn’t go quietly. WSU cut its deficit to 3-2 with 8:37 to play in the second period on a shorthanded goal. But Shimmel would score again for USU with 5:12 remaining in the same period on a rebound to build the lead back to 4-2 in favor of the Aggies.

WSU would add one more goal on a breakaway less than a minute later to again cut the USU lead to one goal, 4-3.

-bhhinton@cc.usu.edu