Bowling Green State University
MIAMI
Falcons Use Special Forces to Defeat Miami, 2-1
November 27, 2004 | Ice Hockey
Nov. 27, 2004
Bowling Green, Ohio - It was a "special" night for Bowling Green on Saturday night as the Falcons garnered a power-play and short-handed goal in a 2-1 victory over visiting Miami, taking three of four points on the weekend from the RedHawks. Senior Steve Brudzewski's third career short-handed goal at 11:26 of the second period proved to be the game-winner.
BGSU picked up its seventh victory before the month of December for the first time since 1996 when the Falcons were 7-7-1 on Nov. 30. This year's team is now 7-3-2, including 4-2-2 in the Central Collegiate Hockey Association, good enough for fourth place.
"We were able to get that first power-play goal and then our penalty kill really did a great job of getting us the game-winning goal," said BGSU Coach Scott Paluch. "I thought our penalty kill, which was a major focus for us this week, was a big key to the weekend for us.
"We were able to develop a little bit of rythym because of our power play goal and our short-handed chance. That kind of gave us the spark."
For the second night in a row, Miami jumped out to a 1-0 lead thanks to a power-play goal. On Saturday it was Chris Busby, scoring his first goal of the season, giving the RedHawks the lead at 14:13 of the first period.
Sophomore James Unger then tied the score at 9:25 of the second period with a power-play goal, thanks to assists from Don Morrison and Brett Pilkington. Just over two minutes later it was Brudzewski's short-hander that gave BGSU at 2-1 lead that it would not surrender. Junior Bryan Dobek picked up an assist on the game, his first point of the season.
"Our bench was really positive tonight, our coaches got us fired up, we really played well defensively tonight," said Brudzewski. "In the second period we just got in there on a better forecheck and it created turnovers in their zone and we really created some offense off of our forecheck."
Miami held a 22-20 shot advantage in the game. The 20 shots is a season-low for the Falcons after Friday night's 22 shot amount. BGSU was 1-for-10 on the power play while Miami was 1-for-6 with the extra man.
Jordan Sigalet earned Perani Cup First-Star honors by stopping 21 of 22 shots faced. Brandon Crawford-West stopped 18 of 20 shots faced. Sigalet improved his season numbers to 2.64 gaa. and .921 save pct.
The Falcons travel to Michigan State at Munn Arena next Friday, Dec. 3, before hosting the Spartans at the BGSU Ice Arena on Saturday, Dec. 4. Both games are scheduled for 7:05 p.m. faceoffs.
