Metro tops Aggies

Scoring troubles continued for the Aggies Saturday night as USU lost to Metro State 4-1 at the Eccles Ice Arena in North Logan despite out-shooting the Roadrunners 41-25.

The Aggies took a 1-0 lead midway through the second period when Roberto Leo found Cory Wardell open in front of the net, who scored. But USU couldn’t find the back of the net for the rest of the game.

“It’s heart-breaking,” Aggie Mikel Roy said. “We’re trying our hardest. The puck just isn’t going in the net.”

Head Coach Jerry Crossley said he would like to see his team try harder.

“We’re really struggling to score a goal,” he said. “Some of that is just effort. We’re not playing together as a team. We need more tenacity.”

MSU scored its first goal in what appeared to be a save by USU goalie Scottie Beard. Whistles had blown because there was a collision in front of the net, but the head official pointed at the goal signaling a goal had been scored to tie the game at 1-1.

“As soon as that happened, we fell apart right there,” Leo said. “But we’ve got to score goals and we couldn’t.”

Crossley said the Roadrunners shouldn’t have been a challenge for the Aggies.

“Most years I would have said we should have beat that team hands down,” he said. “But we can’t beat anybody right now.”

Crossley said he thinks the problem is in team chemistry.

“We’re not in sync,” he said. “We’re not seeing the ice. We’re not seeing each other or what we’re skating into. We need to start communicating. We’re going to sit down Monday and pick this game apart and hopefully come out with something.”

Leo said while the team is struggling right now, there is a lot of time left in the season to recover.

“We lose some games and people think the season is over,” he said. “It’s a long season. There’s a lot of games left. We’ll see [MSU] again, if not in the regular season, then at regionals.”

The Aggies will host San Jose State on Friday and UVSC on Saturday. Over the weekend, SJSU beat Colorado State 10-1, who has beat USU twice this season by a combined score of 13-5. Last Friday, the Spartans beat CSU 10-1 and the teams tied 1-1 last Saturday in San Jose.

-bhhinton@cc.usu.edu

USU’s Mike Walker keeps the puck from a Metro State player duing Saturday’s game at the Eccles Ice Center. The Roadrunners beat the Aggies 4-1.