Aggie hockey club continues roller coaster season
After losing at home to the Southern California Trojans 5-3 Friday, the Utah State hockey club defeated Weber State’s Division II team 7-5 Saturday in Ogden.
Robert Hashimoto scored four goals to lead USU to its fourth win of the season against the Wildcats.
USU was forced to make some changes after losing the night before.
“We just simplified some of the game that we’re playing and some of our positioning,” said Head Coach Jerry Crossley. “We’re going to have to go a little deeper with the personnel that we’ve got and we’ve got to trust in everybody to do their job.”
The Aggies were much more satisfied with their effort against the Wildcats than against the Trojans.
“That loss [to USC] kind of brought us down,” Hashimoto said. “But tonight, we really wanted to take it to Weber State.”
Goalie Chris Webber said, “We needed this win, especially after the loss [Friday]. That loss really hurt us. But I think we bounced back strong.”
The USU defense also stepped up to the added pressure.
“I think we wanted to win the battles [against Weber State],” said Aggie Dave Langlois. “We actually went for the puck instead of backing away from it.”
The Aggies were also playing a much more physical game than they have been.
“I was telling everyone, ‘just hit, hit, hit’,” Hashimoto said. “That changed our game and the momentum flew from there on.”
Crossley said, “This is a physical game and you’ve got to put a body on somebody when it’s your job to do it.”
The Aggies built a five-goal lead when they scored four goals in the first five minutes of the second period only to see that lead shrink to two before the night was over.
With USU up 6-1 in the second period, Aggie Matt Wilcox was ejected from the game for butt-ending a Wildcat player, and the Aggies were forced to play shorthanded for five minutes. The Wildcats would score two goals in that stretch to get themselves back in the game.
Four of the five Weber State goals came on power plays.
The Aggies will travel to Arizona next weekend to take on the Arizona State Sun Devils who are Division I.
“Hopefully, [beating Weber State] is a plus,” Crossley said. “It’s a lot better than losing a game. I would have liked to win both games this weekend, but that will be a tough road trip.”
Friday’s contest against USC was a game in which the Aggies were crippled by mistakes.
USU led 2-1 after the first period, but USC scored all three goals of the second period to take the lead for good.
“It hurts a lot,” said Aggie Jacob Guttormsen. “I’m super-disappointed about what happened. We just could not man-up in our defensive zone whatsoever. We let down in the second period. Our defense was just horrible today.”
Josh Groves started in the net for the Aggies and gave up all five goals on 25 shots.
“We came out with some jump, and then in the second period, we just let down a little bit defensively,” he said. “[USC] got a couple of goals in there and I think it just deflated the team.”
Forward Nick Haase also wasn’t satisfied with his team’s letdown.
“That second period killed us,” he said. “We’ve got to start putting all three periods together to make a complete game. The hustle just wasn’t there tonight and it should have been.”
The Aggies had to make some adjustments to their lines because of injuries to some key defenders.
“I don’t think [the different lines] affected [the outcome] too much,” Guttormsen said. “We’re struggling between if we should play four decent lines or three solid lines. Tonight we tried to put three solid lines together.”
The loss to the Trojans will almost certainly hurt the Aggies in the next rankings, scheduled to be released on Wednesday.
“It just sucks, because if you lose to a [California team], you lose all their votes for nationals,” Guttormsen said. “I think that’s like two or three votes, and we need those votes.”
There are four schools in California with a vote in the national rankings: USC, San Jose State, Long Beach State and California-Los Angeles.
USC sealed the game with just under a minute left when Trojan John Blair shot the puck past Groves on a two-on-one breakaway to make the score 5-3.
USC took the lead in the second period when Trojan Curtis Tiefenbrunn found a way around Groves to score with 5:14 remaining in the period.
The Aggies started the scoring just six minutes into the game when Guttormsen passed to Robert Hashimoto, who found Haase for a shot that ricocheted off Trojan goalie Michael Paa’s skate for a goal – all of which happened in about two seconds.
-bhhinton@cc.usu.edu