No. 2 Eagles burst Aggies bubble
Eastern Washington 5, Utah State 1
Eastern Washington boxed the Aggies’ ears Saturday night, soundly thrashing Utah State to protect their No. 2 ranking in the west. USU’s second straight loss to the Eagles kept them on the outside looking in at a trip to regionals.
“They were disciplined, we weren’t,” Robert Sutherland said.
The Eagles’ neutral zone trap was demoralizingly effective. The garishly-clad visiting squad appeared to be on the power play when things were even, and even when USU was presented with lengthy five-minute power play chances, they could scarcely move the puck out of their own zone.
“We need to shoot more,” Walter Voisard said.
The Eagles opened fire on goalie Greg Finatti whenever they were presented with the slightest opening. The constant barrage created further opportunities for E. Washington to beat the Aggies to rebounds and blitz Finatti some more.
Meanwhile, on the rare occasions when USU was able to maintain possession in E. Washington’s zone for more than a few seconds, they tried to skate around and waited for the perfect opportunity to shoot the puck.
E. Washington’s Adam Pate, a teammate of USU’s team captain Kent Arsenault and E. Washington’s Mike Truex on the all-ACHA M2 select team, faced only 24 shots on goal while Finatti faced 62.
“We try to do the right thing like NHL style, but we’ve got to get it in our head that it doesn’t work anymore and stick to a normal game,” Arsenault said. “We can’t go above the level that we’re at, and that’s what we’re trying to do right now.”
The Eagles appeared to be the more energetic team, even in the pregame warm-ups, and used their up-tempo attack to grind out a 2-0 first-period lead. MacDonald scored USU’s lone goal in the second period in the very early seconds of a 5-on-3 USU power play. But with the better part of a five-minute man advantage still left, the Aggies were knocked back on their heels by the Eagle’s deep group of power forwards, led by players like Truex, Jeremy Weasel Moccasin and Scott Rensmon. E.
Washington quickly scored shorthanded to make it 3-1, then spent the rest of the power play chasing the Aggies around in their own zone. Another five-minute power play for USU later in the second was similarly squandered.
“Eastern Washington, they’re a really solid team,” Voisard said. “They definitely deserve to be in second place where they are right now. They run the neutral zone trap and they run their flow really well. Their offensive forechecking and their defensive backchecking is just phenomenal. We have to pick it up when we play with them. All of us have to have a perfect game and that didn’t happen tonight.”
A game-changing play or a fight could have made the game interesting in the third period, but instead the Eagles kept on grinding and built the lead up to four goals. Much of the third period was played with two or more players in the box for both sides, but it didn’t alter E. Washington’s approach. Weasel Moccasin sent the deserters scrambling for the exits when he set up shop in the high slot, faked a massive slap shot, then instead controlled the puck and wristed it past Finatti to make the score 4-1.
“They just played the trap and they were disciplined on it,” Arsenault said. “That was the difference in the game, just their system. Easy as that. You couldn’t play it any better than they played it tonight.”
Voisard said the Aggies may have misjudged E. Washington after playing them very tough last weekend, losing in overtime in Spokane.
“We were expecting the same team we played up in Washington, but they picked up their game because they were pissed because they almost lost,” Voisard said. “We didn’t create enough opportunities like they did. When we played them in Washington it was a lot closer because we ran our system.”
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Utah State 8, Montana State 1
The Aggies scored six times on the power play and rolled over the visiting Montana State Wildcats Friday night. Brendan MacDonald scored three times for a hat trick in his debut in the Eccles Ice Arena, and also added two assists for a team-leading total of five points.
MacDonald’s linemate Matt Geer had four points, and when combined with Kent Arsenault’s two assists, USU’s top line had 11 points in the game, an impressive total.
“My line is probably the two best hockey players I’ve ever played with in my life,” Geer said.
MacDonald scored the first goal of the game, taking a lightning quick feed from Geer and surprising Montana State goalie Stu Barnes. USU built a 2-0 lead heading into the first intermission when Maciej Michalik fired a tumbling groundball that went between Barnes’ legs. The Aggies continued to methodically build their lead in the second period as Scottie John scored on a blueline slapshot, MacDonald got his second goal, and Matt Geer took a breakaway to the far post and backhanded the puck home.
Although MSU got on the board with an unassisted power play goal early in the third, the Aggies kept working and MacDonald complete the hat trick a short while later. Ryan Osterheldt and Geer poured in two more goals in the third period to make the game an official blowout.
“It was a lot of fun. There was a lot of people here,” MacDonald said. “The hockey’s pretty similar, I mean, my line, we’ve got great chemistry so it’s been pretty easy.”
Geer said MacDonald has fit in so well because he plays a similar style of hockey to Geer himself.
“Me and him kind of have the same style of play. He’s a little bit quicker than I am. We seem to find each other on the ice.”
The Aggie goal was ably protected by Dan Cornelius, who turned aside 19 shots and boosted his Goals Against Average for the second straight weekend.