Hockey wins two of three during Beehive Showcase
Utah State Hockey went 2-1 in this last weekend’s Beehive Classic. Four different teams participated in the classic, which mixed up San Jose State, Eastern Washington, Colorado, and Utah State in a three-day slate of games.
After this weekend, the Aggies now hold a record of 21-3. USU is currently ranked second in the western region of the ACHA’s second division. Eastern Washington is ranked third, Colorado is ranked fourth, and SJSU is ranked fifth.
The first of the weekend’s games for USU was on Thursday against Colorado.
The Aggies held on to a 3-2 lead Thursday night at the Eccles Ice Center and kept the Buffaloes of Colorado at bay for their 20th win.
USU held their own defensively, and despite surrendering a goal midway through the third period, the Aggies maintained their one-goal lead and ended strong. Head Coach Jon Eccles was particularly pleased with the win, especially with his club’s defense.
“This was a big win for us. Colorado is a club that is always tough and disciplined. We’re a lot better defensively than we’ve been in years past. Our defenders are solid, but our forwards also do a great job of coming back defensively.”
USU jumped into a 2-0 lead on the stick of David Wyman after a scoreless first period. Eccles had strong words of praise for Wyman’s execution and effort.
“David Wyman is every coach’s dream,” Eccles said. “He gives 110 percent every night, and when he comes off the ice, he’s tired from working so hard. He’s a great motivator. He’s really taken on his captain’s role to set the example for the team.”
The most improbable and impressive goal of the night was that of Brendan MacDonald. Just over two minutes into the third period, MacDonald deflected the puck toward the Colorado zone and immediately began to give chase. Buffalo keeper Kevin Latinsky came off his line to try to deflect the puck away from MacDonald before he could chase it down. Latinsky, however, was too slow. The two players met the puck at the same time. As MacDonald hit the ice and collided with the CU goaltender, he jabbed his stick at the puck, which slid past Latinsky and into a wide open, unattended net for the third goal of the night.
Eccles said he was surprised to see MacDonald score that way.
“I lost the puck,” he said. “I didn’t know where it was, and all I saw was Brendan get up and start cheering. That’s when I realized what an exciting goal it was.”
USU has struggled historically against Colorado, and Wyman said he knew the Aggies’ opponents would come ready to play. He also said the Aggies felt pretty comfortable with a target on their back.
“We like it,” he said. “It’s definitely a role that we’ve enjoyed playing and we will continue to enjoy it.”
But, it was San Jose State that brought the firepower on Friday. The Spartans never trailed and managed to hand the Aggies their third loss of the season.
USU scored with 5:07 remaining in the first period on a screaming shot by Jeff Sanders to tie the score up at one goal apiece. Twenty seconds later, SJSU took advantage of a USU defensive breakdown immediately after the face-off. Spartan Adam Steadman hit a one-timer past USU goaltender Cody Palmer to retake a 2-1 lead. USU Captain Kent Arsenault said the goal took all the wind out of the Aggies’ sails.
“It absolutely crushes all hopes and all energy,” he said. “For them to come down and score 20 seconds later like that was just a broken defensive play on all players’ behalf. You just have to be ready and rebound off of that to get the flow going again and to get the energy going.”
But the requisite energy didn’t surface quickly enough. SJSU extended its lead to 3-1 early in the second period, and that lead became 4-2 by the end of the second period.
Arsenault said the Aggies came into Friday night’s game too comfortable and confident.
“I think we came in a little bit, and I don’t want to say it,” Arsenault said, “but I think we came in a little bit too cocky. Two weekends ago we played them in San Jose, and I think we thought that we were just going to get the game handed to us.”
USU’s complacency showed itself in poor transition defense and shoddy neutral zone play. Assistant Coach Jay Obmerga said such behavior wouldn’t get USU past the elite teams in the region.
“Every game we should treat like they’re the number one team. The type of stuff that we do we can get away with against weaker squads like the U of U or BYU or Weber, but a team like this, it came a little too late. We didn’t bring it the whole 60 minutes.”
The third period was solid for the Aggies. Dan Cornelius replaced Cody Palmer between the pipes and didn’t let another puck through. USU’s passes looked crisper and their shots looked sharper. Arsenault brought the Aggies within one, 4-3, at the 12:46 mark of the third and gave USU ample time and opportunity to dig out the equalizing goal, but that goal never came.
In the final minute, USU pulled Cornelius out of the net to get an extra man in the SJSU zone, but SJSU got the puck out of its zone and scored the game-sealing goal in an open net with 30 seconds remaining.
USU then turned its attention to Saturday and the Eagles of EWU, hoping to close out the weekend positively. Obmerga said USU would need to bring a lot of energy to beat Eastern.
“We’re just going to have to bring it,” he said. “Their whole program is really deep. Hopefully tonight we learned a lesson, because it’s going to take 60 minutes of effort from everybody.
Perhaps Eccles described the difference between Friday and Saturday best.
He said, “It was a total turnaround. I was proud of the boys for the rebound from how bad we played. We were aggressive each period, we ramped up our intensity, and just took it to another level. The defense stepped up huge. Compared to last night, it was night and day. It just changed the whole picture of the game for us.”
The Aggies took a one-goal lead into the first intermission, then came out in the second period and methodically sliced and diced EWU’s defense to shreds. By the time the period was over, USU had scored four goals, each one by a different player, and the Aggies entered the second intermission with a 5-2 lead.
EWU, rather than playing disciplined defense, opted to get frustrated, lash out, and spend nearly the whole second period with someone in the penalty box. This played right into the Aggies’ hands.
“We had heard that they were undisciplined,” Aggie defender Ty Johns said, “and we knew coming in that we were going to capitalize on our power play chances. So we went in with the mentality of, you know, maybe provoking them a little bit here or there and then backing out of it. That’s why you saw that we stayed on the power play. That’s all it was.”
“Number 19,” Eccles said, referring to EWU’s Ryan Pajimola, “We knew he had issues. So, yeah. We chirped him. Things like that really help, and our guys were more disciplined in not getting wrapped up in stuff, kind of backing out. I think the reffing was pretty good.”
USU continued strong play through the third. Johns’s play stood out in particular. The Aggie defenseman had two goals, one in transition, and the other a screaming slapshot from 30 feet out that snuck into the top left corner of the goal.
“It’s a good feeling to come back after a loss like that and play a good team and just beat them pretty good,” he said. “It was good to show our team what we’re capable of. I think everybody’s starting to realize now and get on board to just how good we can be.”
USU hockey will take Thanksgiving off and will reconvene the following week on the road in Colorado. USU will play Texas A&M, Colorado State, and Northern Arizona in another invitational. Currently USU is undefeated on the road and will look to continue as such.
“We’ve had great road trips,” Eccles said. “We’re shooting to be number one. If we can beat them, we might be able to move into first place and then try and hold on.”
– la.hem@aggiemail.usu.edu