Aggies beat Long Beach, earning two shutouts in a row
USU played Long Beach twice this past week, having an advantage of playing both games at home in the George S. Eccles ice arena. Thursday night the Long Beach 49ers were shut out, losing 6-0. Saturday night also left Long Beach disgraced, with the Aggies triumphing 10-0. Greg Finatti was goalie for both games, earning two shutouts for this season.
Team manager Jon Eccles said, “Finatti played awesome. He saved 31 shots and was phenomenal.”
The Aggies were able to conquer, even though top players Seth Armitage (forward) and MacKenzie York (defense) were out with injuries.
Defenseman and team captain Jordan Francom said Thursday night’s game was a success.
“I feel like the game went really well. We definitely could have beat them worse, but overall it was a good game with us getting a shut out,” he said.
Forward and team captian Kent Arsenault agreed.
“As a team we played excellent, we kept things simple and played the game we wanted to,” he said.
Five of the six goals Thursday night were scored on power plays which are something the team has been working on, Francom said.
“The past two weeks we have really been working on emphasizing our power plays,” Fhe said. “We’re going to score goals no matter what, but it’s good to see our power plays working so well.”
Arsenault added, “I have no complaints about tonight’s game. Everyone played the role they needed to and we played well as a team. We did really well with defense, just focusing on helping Finatti keep the shut out for the whole game.”
The only thing Francom could think of the team could work on was maybe catching more passes.
“Everything else is going pretty smooth. With backchecking we’re really picking it up, it’s coming along better with everyone forcing themselves to come back harder.”
A decrease in the number of penalties received is still something the team is working on. Although the team has been doing better, Eccles said it’s still something to improve on. Francom said the penalties against Long Beach were due to the Aggie’s teamwork and success against the team.
“I think there were more penalties against this team because they were just getting frustrated with the game. We pretty much dominated them,” Francom said.
Last week’s games left four Aggie players disqualified for fighting. Forward Eric Hickenlooper was kicked out of Thursday nights game and Saturday’s chippy game will prevent forwards Billy Gouthro, Matt Ferris and defenseman Jay MacFadden from playing in this week’s game against the University of Utah.
Eccles said the penalties were simply a result of frustration.
“We are doing a lot better with penalties, being more disciplined. I think Long Beach played more aggressively Saturday night because Friday they had played UVU and beat them 8-3. Their team I think tried to get us goaded into things and took their frustrations out on the ice,” he said.
Eccles said something he felt the team did really well Saturday was skating hard the whole 60 minutes.
“We have just been improving on starting our game sooner. In the first period of Thursday’s game we scored three goals, and did the same Saturday,” he said. “In the second period of Thursday’s game we scored two goals, and did the same Saturday. We just opened up and went after them.”
Eccles also added, “We played really well all around with scoring, forechecking, defense and backchecking. We could still be better but everyone is stepping up and rising to fill their roles.”
jodi.burton@aggiemail.usu.edu