Hockey finishes year on sour note
The Utah State University hockey club went to the final tournament of the year in New York seeded No. 2 in the West and ended without a win in 13th place.
“We were expected to do a lot better than we did, but we just didn’t perform up to our potential,” assistant captain Deryk Anderson said. “It was just disappointing. I don’t know how else to say it. I think it was that we just didn’t show up to play.”
The Aggies opened the tournament Wednesday with a 3-2 loss against Stony Brook State University who ended up finishing the tournament right in front of USU.
Coming out slow, the Aggies allowed SUNY to score the first goal early in the game on a power play. A few minutes later, left wing Aaron Burrell scored the Aggies’ first goal of the game evening the score at 1-1 at the end of the first period.
In the second period, forward Kelly Froerer came out putting the pressure on SUNY by scoring to put the Aggies up 2-1 for the remainder of the second period.
The Aggies held their 2-1 lead until SUNY tied up the game with only four minutes left in regulation. In the final 30 seconds of the third period the referee gave a holding call on USU, giving SUNY a two minute power play.
For the rest of regulation, the Aggies were able to defend their goal, forcing overtime.
Thirty seconds into overtime, with SUNY still a man up from the power play, the Aggies let a shot in that gave SUNY the win.
“I don’t want to say the ref lost the game for us, but he called a pretty terrible call,” Anderson said.
USU ended the game with 12 penalties, two of them leading to goals for SUNY.
Their second game was against Oakland University from Michigan and ended in a 7-3 Aggie loss.
Going into the game the Aggies still had a chance to win the tournament, but the loss to SUNY seemed to be too much, Anderson said.
With eight penalties against the Aggies in the first period, Oakland opened up an early lead scoring four goals and putting them ahead of USU 4-1. Twice in the first period the Aggies ended up being down two players due to penalties.
“We pretty much hurt ourselves out there,” Anderson said. “We weren’t disciplined enough. We didn’t adjust to the style of games the refs were calling and it cost us the game.”
Going into their final game against No. 1 seeded Miami of Ohio, Anderson said the Aggies were playing for the pride of the team and a final win for the six Aggie players who won’t be playing with the team next year.
Although they lost 5-2, Anderson said their game against Miami was the best game they played at the tournament even though it wasn’t the closest.