Hockey beats up on BYU
The Utah State hockey club won its first preseason game against BYU 3-2 on a short-handed goal by William Winsa with 22 seconds left.
Winsa had two goals and Aaron Burrell added a goal and two assists to lead the Aggies.
“We dominated [BYU] in every statistic out there except the scoreboard,” Nick Thiros said. “If we didn’t get that last goal, it would have been a downer.”
“Sometimes teams just got to find ways to win,” said Aggie head coach Jerry Crossley. “Maybe that’s just one of those intangibles.”
The game turned ugly in the second period when a brawl broke out, involving 11 players.
“Those boys in the second period really took it to [BYU] in that fight,” Burrell said. “That was pretty cool. It got us going pretty good, it got the fans in it.”
The incident started when Aggie Roberto Leo knocked down BYU goalie Tamio Stehrenberger. Stehrenberger then charged Leo while the puck was still in play. All players on the ice except USU goalie Chris Webber, who was on the other side of the ice, were involved. Eight players were ejected because of the fracas.
“That’s the kind of thing that can just unravel our squad,” Crossley said. “It breaks up the continuity in our team and our lineup, and it ends up affecting multiple players now for games to come. We can’t have it.”
Crossley said he doesn’t think it will have a bad effect on the season.
“I guess this is what exhibition games are for, to shake some of that stuff out and kind of get in the groove again,” he said.
BYU tied the game at two with 11:12 to play in the game on a 5-3 advantage. Jordan Frankom received a five-minute spearing penalty and Ben Froehle was serving a two-minute unsportsmanlike conduct penalty when BYU scored the tying goal.
“This whole game from the second period on was just poor decision making on our part,” Crossley said. “It’s just opening the door for giving the other team a chance to win.”
“We were up 2-1, and there’s no reason we should have let them tie it up,” Thiros said. “We took a dumb penalty and that let them in the game and luckily we ended up with the puck at the end with a great scoring opportunity and buried it.”
Despite the penalty problems, the team still has a positive outlook on the season.
“We’re better than we’ve been in a lot of years so it’s going to be a good season,” Thiros said.
“We’re just getting started right now,” Burrell said. “Everybody can tell after this first game we’re going to have to start working a little harder in practice.”
On Friday, the hockey club played its first ever game against the USU alumni. The current players beat the former player 9-0. Robert Hashimoto had a hat trick and Burrell and Nels Hansen each added two goals in the exhibition.
“That’s just a good fun game to bring back some of the pioneering guys that started this club,” Crossley said.
“I had an awesome time,” Hashimoto said. “They came out strong. I thought they were kind of cheap though.”
“It’s just fun to be back out there with the guys,” said Geoff Sneed, who played for USU in ’96-’97. “[The penalty box] felt like home.”
Sneed referees most of the Aggies’ home games.
“It’s two different jerseys you put on,” Sneed said. “We were just out here for the school today and tomorrow, I’ll be back working for the guys.”
-bhhinton@cc.usu.edu