Bowling Green State University Athletics
Bowling Green State University
Northern Michigan
Northern Michigan Defeats Falcons, 4-1
February 22, 2002 | Ice Hockey
Feb. 22, 2002
Bowling Green, Ohio - The Falcons dropped a 4-1 decision to the Northern Michigan Wildcats Friday night at the BGSU Ice Arena. With the loss, Bowling Green was unable to gain ground on Miami in the CCHA playoff race, who sits three points ahead of the Falcons.
NMU's Terry Harrison scored the first goal of the game on a wraparound shot at 4:28 of the opening frame. Justin Kinnunen increased the Wildcat advantage to 2-0 later in the period.
Early in the second period the Falcons had pressure deep in the Wildcats' zone. While a Bowling Green player wound up to take a shot at an empty net, NMU goaltender Craig Kowalski knocked the net off its moorings, resulting in a penalty shot for the Falcons. BG captain Greg Day took the shot, putting the puck past Kowalski high on his glove side. The Falcons were not able to maintain the momentum gained from Day's 16th goal of the season, though, as the Wildcats would score once more before the period's close. NMU would score an empty net goal late in the third to seal the win.
"Their forwards get the puck deep, they go hard to the net and they make themselves hard to cover," BGSU coach Buddy Powers said about Northern Michigan. "We had opportunities and didn't cash in on them. You look at the Grade-A opportunities in the game, and they had far more Grade-A opportunities. We weren't getting many second or third shots around the net. We weren't getting the rebounds."
Neither team was able to capitalize on the power play, with NMU going 0-3 on the man advantage and BG being held scoreless in two opportunities. Kowalski stopped 24 shots for the Wildcats, while Tyler Masters made 38 saves for Bowling Green.
"Kowalski's a pretty good goalie," said Powers. "If he sees the puck he's going to stop it so you have to get traffic and we didn't do enough of that." As for Masters, "I thought he was pretty solid. They got some pretty good opportunities in some good areas and he made some saves. He really didn't have a chance on the first goal and the same on the second goal.
"With them its got to be a 1-0, 2-1 hockey game...they don't give up that many goals," Powers said about NMU. "They certainly defended their end of the rink well tonight."
Bowling Green (8-21-6, 6-16-3 CCHA) will face Northern Michigan (21-10-2, 14-9-2 CCHA) again Saturday night at BGSU Ice Arena. Faceoff is scheduled for 7:05 p.m., with the game being telecast on Fox Sports Detroit.
