Hockey wins two at home
After getting blanked in two games last weekend, the Utah State Aggies blasted BYU-Idaho with tsunami force, setting a new school record with a 23-1 victory. The 23 goals bettered a record set just last year in a 20-0 dissection of the University of Utah. At least for one night, USU’s offensive headaches were forgotten as 17 different players scored points on Rexburg, which is in its first year playing American Collegiate Hockey Association Division-II hockey.
After having a shorter bench in key games earlier this year against Long Beach and Utah Valley State College, USU Coach Jerry Crossley’s troops outnumbered the Bulldogs’ 18-12. USU’s superior depth, skill and execution overwhelmed Rexburg from the drop of the puck to the final buzzer, while rookie backstop Dan Cornelius turned aside or swallowed up 17 of the 18 shots he faced. In stark contrast, the Rexburg battery of goalies Chris Chatwin and Jeremy Butler was peppered with 80 shots.
The wing Robert Sutherland summed it up best, saying, “Nothing controversial about that game. We just dominated.”
The domination was reflected on the scoreboard for the first time 6:24 into the first period, when William “Swede” Winsa came screaming deep into the Bulldog on the forecheck. It was an aggressive, borderline arrogant play, down one man due to Jay McFadden’s slashing penalty. Winsa intercepted a weak pass behind the goal line and found the cutting Ryan Osterheldt for a 1-0 lead.
“I knew I could get it if I wanted to,” Winsa said. “What can I say, I mean, you saw those guys. I don’t want to say anything bad, it’s their first year in the league. They’re just slow and easy to read.”
Linemates Osterheldt and Winsa were among USU’s top scorers for the night, with Winsa racking up five assists and Osterheldt leading the team in goals with four.
While both last year’s and this year’s record-setting games were precise demolitions of teams in their first year of ACHA competition, the circumstances surrounding the two contests are entirely different. Last year, the Aggies’ 20-0 win came after a remarkable start to the season that included a team-first win over Weber D-I and an 18-3 clinic against the Utes.
The ’07-’08 Ags have had their heads in a fog, struggling mightily to bury pucks and dropping games to rivals UVSC, Colorado and Colorado State by some ugly scores. Last year, the record was ushered in by the good-natured boasts of Roberto Leo and Robert Hashimoto. This year, team leaders were unanimous in shrugging off the newly minted goal record.
“I don’t think we’re really worried about breaking a record, we just want to come together as a team,” said center Aaron Shimmel, who had two goals, two assists and some solid body checks. “We needed tonight to come together and get our lines structured well and get our plays down, so when we go into tomorrow night against a harder team, we’ll play better.”
Another major difference: Last year at this time, Kent Arsenault was well into a record-setting, nation-leading offensive campaign. This year, Arsenault’s struggles have been symptomatic of the entire team’s, as the big deuce-deuce has been the focal point of every opponent’s defense. After a few games with new linemates McFadden and Ben Tikka, Arsenault appears to have turned the corner, as each player had a hat trick against the Bulldogs. Arsenault also tied with Winsa for the team lead in assists, making him the overall point leader for USU with eight.
“I think every game we get to know each other a little better, and that helps out,” McFadden said.
Arsenault concurred.
“I definitely think it’s starting to come around,” he said. “I was expecting Tikka to take a couple of games to get into it, and me, him and Jay are starting to pull together and create a lot of plays.”
Even the most shameless optimist could hardly have conceived of a better start to a seven-game homestand. Whether the Aggies can build on Friday’s win will be a matter of Arsenault and Winsa’s lines continuing to find their identity.
FROM BLOWOUT TO SHOOTOUT, ALMOST
Utah State’s Greg Finatti won his goalie duel with Metro State’s Jacob Tripp Saturday night thanks to an overtime game-winner scored by Jeremy Madigan.
“It’s very exciting,” the rookie wing Madigan said of lifting USU to victory. “I’m glad I scored. It was a three-on-one, and I was being kind of selfish, shot it, and it went in thank God.”
The Aggies were able to dominate possession of the puck for most of the night, but Tripp kept the Roadrunners in the game, and they forced overtime when Finatti allowed a soft goal in the third period.
Finatti said, “I was laughing at myself” when Metro’s Brian Johnson scored the equalizer. “He made the first shot, and then for some reason, he got the rebound and beat me to the post.”
Metro actually had great chances to win the game outright in the third, as all three penalties in that period were on USU, but Finatti and the penalty kill were solid, setting up Madigan’s overtime heroics.
A fast skater with great anticipation, Madigan has had numerous breakaway attempts this year but up until Saturday was struggling to convert them. Against Metro, Madigan said he tried to deke the goalie out more, and the results speak for themselves: two goals, both on odd-man rushes.
“Coach is always telling us to get the goalie moving,” Madigan said, “so I tried to fake him out and put it in the net.”
Metro tied the score for the first time in the second period, when USU got a little greedy on the forecheck while playing one man down. Metro rushed the puck into USU’s zone and ran a nice little play to get a one-timer past Finatti, who finished with 35 saves. Later in the second, USU went up by one again when Arsenault took a feed from McFadden and gunned the puck into the net from long range.
USU’s players had high praise for Tripp.
“He was awesome,” Madigan said. “Standing on his head, making all these great saves. He played an awesome game. I think he is what kept them in it. We pretty much dominated, and he was their whole team. Some of their kids were good, like I don’t want to diss on their whole team, but most of the kids just didn’t have much control of the puck.”
Team Vice President Kristin Peterson said if the score had still been tied after the five-minute overtime, the teams would have gone to a shootout. Although ACHA rules do not honor the shootout, meaning the game would have gone down as a tie officially, Peterson said the team decided to implement shootouts for purely entertainment purposes after the recent 3-3 tie against Long Beach State.
“We’re always looking out for the fans, and we want to keep them coming back,” Peterson said.
– graham.terry@aggiemail.usu.edu