Weber D-II not a problem for Aggies
The Utah State hockey club continued its domination of the Weber State Division-II team last weekend, winning both games by a combined score of 19-6.
Last Saturday in Logan, Aaron Burrell scored a hat trick and Mike Lewandowski added another two goals to lead the Aggies past the Wildcats 10-4.
USU ran into trouble early as WSU took a 2-1 lead, their first lead of the year over the Aggies.
“It sucks when you go down to a team like that, but it fired us up,” Burrell said. “None of our guys ever felt like this was going to be a close game. These guys shouldn’t even be able to shoot on us, let alone score.”
The Wildcats would tie the game at three early in the second period, but the Aggies came back to score six-straight goals in the period to put the game away.
Goalie Chris Webber put some of blame for the bad start on him.
“I could do better,” he said. “I’m kind of glad we played the Weber D-II team tonight, because if we were playing a real team, I would have been in trouble.”
USU scored three shorthanded goals, one coming late in the second period when Burrell skated through all four Wildcat players on the ice to score.
“That was kind of fun,” Burrell said. “I just kept going with the puck. I tried going into the zone once, but I had to loop around. But no one put a body on me so I kept going.”
Webber said he was amazed when he saw the play.
“I was like ‘wow,'” he said. “I thought that goal was awesome. He showed everyone what he could do.”
Burrell scored all three of his goals in a 3:48 stretch late in the second period and appeared to have another goal called back just seconds later.
“It seemed like everything was going in,” Burrell said.
The Aggies have now swept all six meetings with the lower-division WSU squad this season by a score of 63-10.
Last Friday, the Aggies beat the ‘Cats 9-2 in Ogden in its first game since the month-long winter break.
Crossley said USU wasn’t perfect in its win, but played well considering how much time off it had.
“Overall I was pretty happy with tonight’s game,” he said. “A lot of guys did a lot of good stuff.”
Aggies Roberto Leo and William Winsa each scored two goals in the rout.
Leo said he was excited to be playing well again.
“It felt good to hit the ice again,” he said. “I’ve felt like I’ve been in a slump for a while so this feels good.”
Leo, Winsa and Josh Groves played on the same line for the first time this season and scored five goals between them.
“We were just moving the puck,” Leo said. “Groves worked well on our line.”
“We had some good hustle-play out of Josh Groves up front,” he said. “There was good effort there.”
With a few players out with injuries or for eligibility, Crossley said it is very important that the Aggies establish a third line that can be productive.
“We need to get a good solid three lines,” he said. “We’ve got some players out right now so it’s good to have Josh stepping up and filling in.”
Crossley said he was also pleased with the play of Chad Johnson, who filled in defensively for the Aggies.
-bhhinton@cc.usu.edu