Aggies fall hard at regional tournament

The ghosts of fall semester came back to haunt the Utah State hockey club as it lost both of its games at the regional tournament in San Jose, Calif., last weekend.

After finishing the first semester with a 9-16-1 record, the Aggies had won seven straight heading into the tournament.

Friday, the Aggies lost 3-0 to Weber State and then lost again Saturday 3-1 to Long Beach State.

In order to have qualified for the national tournament, the Aggies would have had to win both of their games.

Mikel Roy said the biggest problem for USU was that the Aggies weren’t working together.

“We weren’t working as a team,” he said. “We were doing our own thing. Teamwork was the key and we didn’t have it.”

Had the Aggies beat the Wildcats, they would have played Denver for a spot at the national tournament in March. But since it lost, USU played LBSU the next day in a consolation game.

Senior Chad Johnson said he wishes his final year would have ended better.

“Nothing clicked for us,” he said. “We couldn’t get any momentum going.”

Head coach Jerry Crossley said WSU was more prepared than USU for Friday’s game.

“We’ve played them a lot of times,” he said. “Our execution wasn’t quite what I hoped for.”

Johnson said WSU had figured out how to play USU.

“They watched game film on us,” he said. “They were definitely ready for us. We couldn’t use our speed on them. They’d just dump it into the boards and trap us.”

Roy said the Aggies were looking past the Wildcats.

“We overlooked that game since we beat them twice this semester,” he said. “They studied us pretty well.”

Roy said he hardly felt the trip to San Jose was worth it just to lose to an in-state opponent in the first round.

“I’d rather have played them back at home,” he said. “We didn’t bring our game.”

Roy said the Aggies should have cared more about Saturday’s consolation game against the 49ers.

“We had a different attitude going into that game,” he said. “We still could have played better.”

LBSU was the lowest-ranked team going into the tournament.

“Losing to the 10th place team is a pretty disappointing way to end the season,” Johnson said. “We finished the way we started.”

Going into the tournament, USU had out-scored its opponents 69-16 this semester.

“It’s frustrating only scoring one goal in two games,” Crossley said. “We didn’t do what we’ve been doing. We only had four or five rebound shots the whole weekend.”

The lone goal on the weekend came from Kyler McCarrel on the “gold line,” the fourth line for USU.

“I get a kick out of that,” Crossley said. “They’ve done a good job. They scored in three of the last four games.”

Roy said the Aggies’ spring semester surge still made the season exciting.

“We still finished out strong,” he said. “We’re going to be really good next year. We’ve got a lot of young guys and our captains did a good job of maturing the players.”

Roy said that he will be on an LDS mission next year and will not be playing.

Johnson will also be gone next season as this is his final year of eligibility.

He said he’s not too concerned with the way this season will end.

“It’s not about the wins and losses,” he said. “It’s about the camaraderie. I had a great time.”

USU’s season is not officially over yet. They Aggies still have and home-and-home set with the Weber State Division-I squad Friday and Saturday.

Johnson said the team is still taking these games seriously.

“We want to end the season on a high note,” he said. “We can do that by taking one game from Weber.”

-bhhinton@cc.usu.edu