Big trip for hockey as USU takes 2 in Calif.
Utah State ran through a weak Division-III Santa Clara team, 11-0, in a game Greg Finatti said the Ags shouldn’t have even been playing.
“We should have played San Jose both nights,” Finatti said. “If you play a Division-III team, you just start playing down to their level and it gives you bad habits going into the next game.”
Finatti’s issues with the scheduling notwithstanding, it was a night of firsts for the Aggies and a chance to put another game in the win column. Defenseman Eric Hickenlooper and forward Jonah Nelson both scored the first goals of their USU careers, while freshman goaltender Dan Cornelius got his first shutout while wearing Aggie colors.
“It was awesome,” Cornelius said. “I don’t get many shutouts, so it’s nice to get one finally.
“I have no luck. Something stupid will always happen with a couple of minutes left. It was good to get the first one out of the way.”
Ben Tikka and Will Winsa led the USU attack with three points apiece. Both players had two goals and one assist.
Team captain Scotty John said for being an obviously inferior Division-III team, Santa Clara was awfully chippy.
“They weren’t very good, obviously, as the score suggests,” John said. “Two of their kids got kicked out for trying to fight. One of them punched me in the face like five times. I had my cage on and he was wearing his gloves, but it was still annoying that I couldn’t do anything or else I’d get kicked out for the next game.”
Cornelius said it was a good team effort that allowed him to get the goose egg on the scoreboard.
“There were a couple of two-on-ones and two-on-zeros,” he said. “But the defense also bailed me out a couple of times.”
REVENGE
The Aggies avenged a bitter week-old loss by stunning the Spartans in their own backyard, 4-3. Kent Arsenault settled a personal score with Spartan wing Sean Scarborough by showing him up with two goals and one assist, including the game-winning goal in the third period. Scarborough did not score in the game.
Greg Finatti, who started in goal and had an impressive 45 saves to lead USU to victory, said the Arsenault-Scarborough beef started when some San Jose boosters dissed Arsenault for scoring most of his points against weak teams in an online chat room.
“San Jose always talks s— on hockey101.com about how Scarborough from their team scores goals in big games and he should be on the all-ACHA select team instead of Kent, so it was nice for him to shut them up,” Finatti said.
“Kent played like a guy that wanted to prove he was better, and he did,” John said. “He was being a positive leader. It was a feel-good weekend pretty much.”
Arsenault said he didn’t say anything to Scarborough after scoring the game-winner, but he did send a message to the crowd: “Half the people replying on that hockey101 are fans or former players. I just looked up to the crowd and told them to hush with the old finger to the lip.”
Both Finatti and John said they were worried that playing against a weak D-III squad the night before facing San Jose State would lead to the Aggies getting lazy, but it didn’t happen.
“Honestly, usually it’s tougher to play a bad team the night before because it’s hard to stay focused, but this weekend was different than most because we played our systems well both nights,” John said.
Ryan Osterheldt and Matt Ferris provided the other two goals for USU as head coach Jerry Crossley shuffled his lines: Freshman sensation Ben Tikka moved back to defense, where he played in juniors, and Walter Voisard moved up to play on Tikka’s line with Arsenault and Jay McFadden.
“Tikka and Maci played pretty well together,” Finatti said.
As usual, when USU beats a top team, Finatti’s presence between the goalposts was the deciding factor. Stop if this sounds familiar: Finatti had nearly double the number of saves as the opposing goalie.
“It’s better because you get in the zone,” Finatti said. “You’re not waiting five minutes without facing a shot. I’m used to it after three years here.”
Arsenault said San Jose’s claim to play in the “loudest barn in the West” is false advertising.
“It’s definitely not true,” Arsenault said. “I’d say our barn is four if not five times louder. They have nothing compared to what we have.
“We watched their game Friday night against Sac State, and their fans are just brutal. They’re not the loudest fans in the West, that’s for sure.”
When asked if USU saved its season with this win at San Jose, Finatti said, “It put us in a good position to keep going. If we lost that game, we had no chance. Now it’s a realistic chance we can be successful this year. I was pretty pleased that our team actually came out and played. It was nice to beat them in their place. Give everybody something to think about.”
Up next for the Aggies is a date down south with their bitter rivals, the Brigham Young University Icecats, last seen slinking off the ice after John’s overtime game-winner in the Ec. John said his team is revitalized after making a statement against the Spartans, and getting motivated for BYU won’t be a problem.
“It’s always easy to be mad,” John said. “We have to play in Provo, and that makes me really mad. It’s that place. I walk into a malt shoppe after the game with a beard and people are staring at me.”
-graham.terry@aggiemail.usu.edu