Ag hockey bounces back from tough loss, defeat Utes
Straying away from an ugly trend Saturday night, the Utah State University club hockey team breezed by the University of Utah 4-2 at home.
USU was also in action the night before, dropping its first match ever in the George S. Eccles Ice Arena 5-4 to the Colorado Buffaloes.
USU 4, Utah 2
The unattractive trend the Aggies (4-3-1) shook off Saturday was their tendency to dig a deep hole against opponents through the first two periods before having to fight back to win or tie.
For the first time since contesting the Utes in Logan Oct. 5, the Aggies held a lead going into the third period due in large part to a three-goal second period and shutting out the Utes in the same
period.
“It’s been a while since we’ve had a lead and been able to maintain it,” said USU assistant coach Ty Newberry. “I think [we] found out that it’s a lot easier to play with the lead than it is to play catch-up.”
At the 17:13 mark of the first period, Aggie center Robert Hoshimoto was wide open in between the face-off circles, 20 feet out from the Ute goal, and zipped a slap shot in for a 1-0 USU lead.
The Utes responded 10 minutes later as Greg Ricketts also found himself open from inside the right face-off circle to tie the score at 1-1.
From then on the Aggies took control.
Just under four minutes into the second period, Aggie Jacob Guttormsen took advantage of a Robert Leo flat pass from the right side of the net for a 2-1 Aggie advantage.
Less than 20 seconds later Leo put the Aggies up 3-1 with a flip shot from about five feet out off an Aaron Sutliff assist.
Seven minutes later, USU capitalized on a power-play opportunity as Sutliff scored USU’s final goal as he came to the middle horizontally from the right side, swerving between Ute defenders.
It appeared as though USU came into the third period not looking to score because of its three-goal lead, but Newberry said the only thing different was the slightly unknown feeling of having a secure lead.
“We didn’t adjust our game,” he said. “It’s just that there [was] no sense of panic. The guys feel more control in the game when they have the lead.”
With 2:46 remaining in the third the Utes put in a power-play goal with a five-on-three advantage, providing a glimmer of hope for a comeback on their part.
But it was too little, too late.
“[USU’s] penalty – that did open the door for us to be able to maybe move in and capitalize and sneak a point out of what we probably didn’t deserve to have at that point,” said Ute Head Coach Stan Weiss. “We had three good scoring opportunities where we missed the net too many times or hit a stick or a leg or a post.”
Aggie defender Rad Anderson defender said, “It seems kind of odd [because] we’re more of a comeback team. It was more of just a good defensive game we had.”
Colorado 5, USU 4
With 54.8 seconds left, the Buffaloes put in the game winning goal, partly due to the Aggies getting mixed up in their defensive assignments, Newberry said.
The Aggies held leads of 1-0 and 2-1 in the first period off of goals by Ben Froehle and Mike Lewandowski.
In the second period, the Buffaloes put in two straight power-play goals within a two-minute span before USU left wing Aaron Burrell tied the score at three with 7:35 remaining.
After Colorado took the lead again with 18:12 to go in the third, Anderson scored USU’s final goal with 15:38 remaining.
“We only exert as much energy as we need to,” Newberry said. “The third period is usually our period and it hit us in the behind because we waited until the end to start playing the game. [Colorado] earned that win.”
-samhis@cc.usu.edu