Hockey rolls BYU Friday, escapes Saturday for sweep
Utah State hockey faced off with in-state rival BYU for the first time this year in a pair of weekend games, one of which was in dominating fashion, while the other trickled all the way down to the wire.
The Aggies opened up the first of the two games Friday on the road, and got off to a mixed start to the weekend. Utah State jumped out to a 1-0 lead in the first period, but not without feeling like they had missed a few opportunities.
“We pretty much dominated the period,” said USU head coach Jon Eccles. “It wasn’t clicking.”
Dave Wyman’s first period goal was one of the Aggies’ 14 shots in that period, double the total shots for BYU.
During the first intermission, Eccles and his staff adjusted the team’s forecheck for the second period to turn up the pressure on BYU in their own defensive zone, and the end result was 10 total Utah State goals in the second period.
“We went out and executed flawlessly,” Eccles said. “We were scoring every two minutes.”
Matt Hamilton opened up the second-period scoring with his first goal of the game, with assists from Jay McFadden and team captain Kent Arsenault, his second assist of the game.
Arsenault found his name on the score sheet yet again when the Aggies took a 3-0 lead, this time the goal coming off his own stick. McFadden buried two goals of his own in the second period as well, while Hamilton netted two more to give him a hat trick for the game.
Wyman added one more goal in the second to go along with scores from Chase Allington, Matt Ferris and Jeremy Martin. Arsenault logged assists on six of the Aggies’ 11 goals on the night, giving him seven total points on the game.
With the game essentially put away after two periods, the Aggies dropped back into a more passive forecheck for the third period of play, which made a few more scoring opportunities for BYU in the game’s final period. Despite remaining even in total shots for the period, 12 apiece, BYU made its way onto the scoreboard in the third period to add a shred of consolation to an eventual 11-3 loss.
That late surge during Friday’s game appeared to give BYU the confidence to play with Utah State going into Saturday’s rematch at the Eccles Ice Center.
The Cougars struck first Saturday off a power play goal from Noah Frost just five minutes into the contest.
Utah State’s Brendan MacDonald responded just minutes later with a goal of his own to tie the game at 1-1.
Eccles said, “We started out a little slow and kind of got things going toward the end of the period.”
USU capped off that late-period momentum with a go-ahead goal by Arsenault with less than a minute to play to take a 2-1 lead into the first intermission.
In the second period, the Aggies put themselves into a jam early on with three separate penalties early in the frame. USU killed all three however, and responded by taking a 3-1 lead off the stick of Ty Johns with 10:46 remaining in the period.
BYU followed with their own flurry of penalties, setting up the opportunity for Arsenault and Wyman to score a pair of power play goals.
Late in the period however, USU defenseman Jeff Sanders was given a game misconduct as the result of a scrum behind the BYU net, which saw three other players penalized. Sanders’ misconduct penalty further thinned out an already depleted USU defensive unit that was already without Martin, who had been given a disqualification from fighting in Friday’s game, as well as an injured Alex Lund.
BYU used that to its advantage in the third period as they slowly chipped away at the 5-1 USU lead. Cougar captain Josh Burkart scored off the power play just 2:31 into the period, with teammates John Ternieden and Bucky Storey scoring even-strength goals to make narrow USU’s lead to 5-4.
The Aggies kept themselves out of the penalty box for most of the final 10 minutes of the game until a clipping penalty with 2:31 remaining put USU’s Logan Huppert into the box for the majority of BYU’s last stand to tie the game.
USU’s penalty woes get worse just 18 seconds later as MacDonald was called for a five-minute major penalty for spearing, leaving the Aggies to battle out the final two minutes with a 5-on-3 situation. That 5-on-3 turned into a 6-on-3 as soon as the Cougars pulled their goalie, but the Aggies held strong as the heat turned up.
Despite missed attempts by Billy Gouthro and Wyman on the empty net, Utah State managed to run off the final seconds of the game to escape with a 5-4 victory.
Even though the Aggies were down to just three skaters, Eccles felt like his team had a little extra help out on the ice as they killed the penalties in the final minutes.
“We thank the crowd for coming and supporting us,” Eccles said. “That was huge. That helps the boys.”
Utah State improves its record to 11-2 on the season as they look ahead to the first match-up of the year against the University of Utah at 7 p.m. Friday. The Aggies will return to Provo to face BYU yet again on Saturday.
– matt.sonn@aggiemail.usu.edu