Hockey team goes 2-1 in homestand
The Utah State hockey club had a split weekend, losing to Colorado on Friday, but winning against San Jose State on Thursday and Cal-Berkeley Saturday in the Eccles Ice Center.
The Ags fell to Colorado 3-2, giving up a go-ahead power-play goal to the Buffaloes with 4:11 to play in the game.
“It’s one of those games that you’d have really, really liked to have won,” head coach Jerry Crossley said. “Overall, our guys played well. It’s probably about as good a hockey game as you could see. We just came up short.”
Aaron Burrell and Nick Haase each scored an unassisted goal for the Aggies’ only two points.
CU scored two of their goals on power plays after not scoring once with the man-advantage last weekend against USU.
“Mental mistakes killed us tonight,” Aggie Ben Froehle said. “We didn’t play the whole game the way we should have.”
Overall, the Ags felt it was a very evenly matched game and it could have gone either way.
“We had our moments,” Froehle said. “We created some good chances for ourselves. They had about as many chances, but they just capitalized on more of them.”
This was the final meeting of the year between USU and any of the Colorado schools. This season, the Ags dropped all three matches against their Colorado opponents. Because of the losses, it will be difficult for USU to pull ahead of either CU or Colorado State in the rankings before the end of the year.
“It’s a long shot,” Crossley said. “I think they would have to have a terrible second half of the season to open up the back door.”
The Aggies are still not worried about going to nationals at the end of the season.
“We’re good enough to get to nationals,” Lang said. “We’ll see these guys again, as long as we get the wins we need to.”
Saturday, however, was a different story for the Ags as they beat up on Cal-Berkeley 7-1 in a game dominated from start to finish by the Aggies.
Seven different Ags found the back of the net and five more had two assists in the blow out.
Despite the domination, USU still felt like it could have done better.
“I think we had a little room for improvement still,” Aggie Sean Fox said. “But all in all, a win’s a win.”
Fox, along with goalie Scottie Beard, played in his first regular season game of the year.
“Tonight, they gave me a chance and I showed them what I had,” Fox said. “It was the first game I really got a chance to go in there. I feel like I’ve been earning it.”
Beard gave up only one goal in his first start of the season. But, he had a quiet night because the Aggie defense kept the puck on Berkeley’s end for most of the game.
Beard added that he didn’t think it was just the defense that played well. He said that the offense did its part, putting the puck in the back of the net and keeping it out of the zone for the Aggies.
Thursday, USU beat the previously undefeated San Jose State Spartans 6-5 in a come-from-behind overtime thriller.
Robert Hashimoto shot the puck past Spartan goalie Ryan Lowe with 2:14 remaining in overtime to win the game. SJSU took a 5-3 lead with 9:22 to play in the third period until Nick Thiros scored with 8:04 left and Jordan Francom found the back of the net with 1:00 left to force the game into overtime.
“The first two periods were pretty bad,” Hashimoto said. “But we got the game winning goal and it feels good.”
The Aggies were down 2-0 at the end of the first period and down 4-2 late in the second period before rallying late.
“We had the momentum in the third period and whenever you have the momentum going into overtime, that’s a good feeling,” Thiros said. “Some of [SJSU’s goals] were lucky bounces, but we just didn’t come to play from the beginning of the game. That’s the only reason they went ahead on us.”
This was the first meeting this year for goalie Chris Webber and his former team. Webber played for the Spartans in his freshman year.
“Every goal they scored on me they were talking trash,” he said.
Webber said his relationship with his old team favored the Spartans more than him and he was not surprised the game was close.
“I think it favors them because they know my weaknesses,” he said. “They definitely know how I play. I knew they were going to play a physical game.”
The loss dropped SJSU to 7-1 on the season.
The Aggies will turn their attention to next weekend’s three game home stand against BYU and the Weber State Division-II team.
-bhhinton@cc.usu.edu