Hockey team dominates competition during San Jose Showcase
The Utah State hockey team traveled to the San Jose Showcase this past weekend for a three-game set against Denver University, the University of Washington, and San Jose State.
Of the four teams participating in the weekend’s games, the real showcase was put forth by the Aggies, who cane out from the very beginning firing on all cylinders, said assistant coach Jay Obmerga, and never let up throughout a dominating effort in which Utah State outscored its opponents 15-2.
The weekend began against the Pioneers of DU, a game in which the Aggies game-planned to wear down their opponents from the start.
“They’re a really up-tempo team, but they had a very short bench, so we tried to push them as hard as we could to get them tired out,” USU head coach Jon Eccles said.
The Aggies didn’t waste much time jumping out to an early lead, scoring their first goal just two and a half minutes into the game off the stick of Kent Arsenault. Then just minutes later Tyler Mistelbacher buried another USU goal to put the Aggies up 2-0 going into the first intermission.
Billy Gouthro put his name on the score sheet with the second period’s lone goal to put USU up 3-0 after two periods.
Following a five-minute major penalty to USU’s Brendan MacDonald, the Pioneers used the ensuing power play to score their lone goal of the game to give Denver a glimmer of hope, trailing just 3-1 at that point.
USU forward Jeremy Madigan quickly extinguished that glimmer for Denver when he stole the puck near the blue line of Denver’s defensive zone and scored just seconds after the Pioneers’ lone goal of the contest.
“The kind of broke their backs,” Eccles said of Madigan’s goal, which was the final tally in the Aggies’ 4-1 win Thursday.
Friday saw the Aggies matched up against the Huskies of the University of Washington. The Huskies found after two periods, though, that they could not quite match up to USU.
Washington opened up the game with a level of intensity that gave USU trouble from the beginning, but nothing more than the Aggies could handle as they jumped out to 1-0 on a goal from Madigan.
“They really came out flying,” Eccles said of Washington’s first period play. “I think for them it was one of their biggest games of the year.”
That intensity paid off for the Huskies, as they answered Madigan’s goal with one of their own just three minutes later to take a 1-1 tie into the first intermission where Eccles attempted to get his team refocused on taking control of the game.
“We talked in the locker room,” Eccles said. “We talked about getting our legs back, getting our energy going, start hitting, start punishing them like they had kind of jumped on us and we came out and scored four goals.”
Those four goals, as well as the rest of the goals in the game, came in bunches. Matt Hamilton took back the lead for Utah State just more than a minute into the second period, and then scored again less than a minute later to put USU up 3-1.
Then it was Gouthro’s turn for a scoring rush, as he netted the next two Aggie goals to take a 5-1 lead into the third period.
Arsenault scored the next two goals, the first coming off the power play with 14:30 remaining in the third period. He took all of 14 seconds to score his second goal of the game to put USU up 7-1.
Hamilton wanted the get the last word in however, capping off his night with a hat-trick goal coming off an assist from David Reeve, who, despite not scoring any of the team’s goals, earned particular praise from his coach.
“He only had a couple shifts, but he really went out and worked hard,” Eccles said of Reeve’s effort Friday.
USU goalie Cody Palmer saved 18 of Washington’s 19 shots, with the Huskies’ lone goal coming off a deflection off of one of Palmer’s own teammates’ stick.
Saturday night, goalie Dan Cornelius was back in net for the Aggies after an impressive effort where he allowed just one goal on 21 shots in Thursday’s game.
This time around, Cornelius saved 27 out of 27 shots to lead Utah State in a shutout of San Jose State.
MacDonald scored a pair of power play goals for USU, with one goal coming in each of the first two periods, while Mistelbacher capped off the 3-0 victory with a goal of his own in the third period.
“Everybody really kind of stepped it up and really played all out and just did everything they needed to do to help their teammates,” Eccles said of the final game of the weekend sweep.
The Aggies improved their record to 16-2 on the season after the weekend sweep, and have now won seven consecutive games and remain undefeated on the road. They have also outscored opponents 27-3 over the team’s past five games.
The team returns home this weekend for games against Metro State Thursday and in-state rival Weber State Friday.
– matt.sonn@aggiemail.usu.edu