Bowling Green State University
NORTHERN MICHIGAN
BGSU Drops Season-Opener, 2-1
October 10, 2003 | Ice Hockey
Oct. 10, 2003
Marquette, Mich. - The Bowling Green offense didn't get things going until the second half of Friday's game at Northern Michigan. However, the Falcons still dropped the 2003-04 season opener in Marquette, Mich., by the score of 2-1 to the Wildcats.
NMU got the shots early in the game and mustered a goal midway through the first and late in the second periods. Then it was BGSU that got the shots in the second half of the game, but netted its only goal of the game late in the first period.
NMU held a 14-5 advantage in shots-on-goal in the first period and goalie Jordan Sigalet kept the Falcons close. Sigalet made three saves that would be hard to rival in the first period alone, including a glove save to his left while he was sprawling to his right that kept the game scoreless at the seven-minute mark.
However, the Wildcats still struck first with a Patrick Murphy goal at 9:50 for a 1-0 lead. The BGSU offense began to gain momentum and finally answered after a drive by Steve Brudzewski resulted in the winger pushing the puck between NMU goalie Craig Kowalski's left knee-pad and post to knot the game (1-1) at 17:09. Ryan Minnabarriet and Alex Rogosheske picked up assists on the play.
NMU scored just :53 seconds into the second period to extend its lead to 2-1 when Andrew Contois netted his third collegiate goal.
"In the first 25 minutes of the game it was evident that they were the team that knew how to play on Olympic-size ice," said BGSU coach Scott Paluch. "We just couldn't dump the puck well in the first period. Over the final 40 minutes of the game we started to pull it together offensively."
The person that kept the Falcons in the game, though ,was Sigalet who finished with 30 saves, including 13 in the first period and 12 in the third period.
"Siggy was tremendous early on to get us into the season," said Paluch. "He made some saves early to keep us in it."
NMU goalie Craig Kowalski finished with 27 saves, including 12 in the final period.
Neither team was successful on the power play with NMU finishing 0-for-2 and BGSU finishing 0-for-5. The Falcons were on the power play just :12 seconds into the game but failed to gain momentum.
The Wildcat victory snapped a three-game winning streak for the Falcons against NMU. BGSU debuted its new road (light) jerseys in the game.
The two teams meet again tomorrow night in the Berry Events Center at 7:35 p.m.
