Ag hockey drops 2 in Tempe, look for ASU rematch
The Utah State hockey club missed an opportunity to beat a Division-I opponent last weekend as the Arizona State Sun Devils won both games played.
The Aggies lost 8-2 last Friday and lost 2-1 last Saturday.
“The second game, we were right there with them,” Aggie Jordan Francom said. “We competed and we probably should have beat them.”
Aggie Roberto Leo said USU had its chances to tie the game last Saturday, but couldn’t score when it needed too.
“We had a chance to tie it at the end, but things just didn’t happen and we lost,” he said.
Leo missed last Wednesday’s game aginst the Weber State D-I squad with what he thought was food poisoning. He said he was at full strength for most of last weekend in Arizona.
“The first game I got a little tired,” he said. “But the second night, I was ready to go.”
Last Friday, the Aggies were tired from a long bus trip and it showed on the ice.
“The first game we didn’t do too well,” Francom said. “It was a long bus trip so we had bus legs.”
“The first night everybody was tired,” Leo said. “Nobody was really into it.”
Aggie goalie Adam Lain said he faced about 60 shots last Friday, this coming after he set a school record with 66 saves against the WSU D-I team.
“I don’t think I ever faced that many shots [in two games],” he said. “Arizona State was a really fast, quick team. They just generated a lot more offense.”
The Aggies will now gear up to play the same ASU team on Thursday at the Eccles Ice Center in North Logan.
The USU home ice is Olympic sized, as opposed to the NHL size rink that the Aggies faced the Sun Devils on in Tempe, Ariz. The Olympic-sized ice is larger, which the Aggies think will help them.
“I think it will help us,” Leo said. “They’re a fast-paced team. We’ll be able to slow things down a little bit. We’ll just play the same game we did Saturday night and we should be good.”
Francom said that if USU plays a good physical game against the Sun Devils, then USU has a much better chance at winning.
The two losses last weekend dropped USU’s record to 7-8-1 on the season, with six of those defeats coming against D-I opponents. However, the Aggies do not think that the losses have hurt the team to this point.
“I thought we played quite even [Saturday night],” Francom said. “They were a D-I team. To skate with a D-I team, it just helps us more.”
“We want to play teams like that,” Leo said. “It makes us a better team.”
The ASU-USU rematch will start at 7:30 p.m. Thursday night.
-bhhinton@cc.usu.edu