Ag hockey team to drop puck against Colorado, Berkley
The Utah State hockey club is looking to get its first winning record of the year this weekend with a three-game homestand against San Jose State, Colorado and Cal-Berkeley.
The Aggies lost to Colorado 4-2 last Friday and look for some payback this weekend.
“We owe those guys a little favor,” Aggie Aaron Burrell said. “I think we’re all going to be pretty much on the top of our game Friday night. Everyone’s going to be pretty pissed off and amped up and ready to go for Colorado.”
Third-period penalties committed by USU gave the Buffaloes the opportunities they needed to come from behind for the victory.
“We played CU last week in a game, honestly, I think we should have won if we had a little better discipline,” head coach Jerry Crossley said. “I look forward to another really good game.”
Despite not beating any Colorado team over the last three years, the Ags are confident that they will come away with a win.
“We almost had them on the road and I think we’ll get them here at home,” Aggie Jordan Francom said.
A win over CU Friday will give USU a chance to pass up the Buffaloes in the rankings.
“It would put us right back in the heat of things,” Crossley said. “We need to win that game.”
Most important for the team is to right the ship after losing both games last weekend.
“We just need three big wins at home,” Francom said. “That’s probably our biggest concern right now. We need them all for the standings and where it puts us.”
“We really do need to come away with three wins this weekend,” Crossley said.
USU is also being careful not to overlook Berkeley on Saturday.
“We’re not going to over look them but I think we got a real good shot to beat them if we just play the way we play,” Francom said.
The Aggies have not played Berkeley in the last couple of years, so they do not have a good scouting report for them.
“I really don’t know what to expect from Berkeley,” Crossley said. “It’s been a couple years. We used to play them fairly regularly. We’ll have to see. That’ll be game three and I’m sure we’ll be getting pretty tired by then.”
Crossley said he remembers the kind of game they played a few years ago at their last meeting.
“They had some pretty good players,” he said. “They didn’t have really good depth. They played just a scrappy kind of game that was a little unorthodox but hard to play against.”
-bhhinton@cc.usu.edu