Bowling Green State University Athletics
Bowling Green State University
MIAMI
RedHawks Upend Falcons, 5-3
November 26, 2005 | Ice Hockey
Nov. 26, 2005
BOWLING GREEN, Ohio - The Bowling Green State University hockey team dropped their second straight contest, including five of their last six, after falling victim to the Miami RedHawks 5-3 Saturday night at the BGSU Ice Arena. The loss drops the Falcons to 3-9-1 overall and 3-7-1 in the CCHA.
"I thought we scratched and clawed and played a real hard game," said head coach Scott Paluch. "That is a real good hockey team there and they finished off the plays when they needed too. I thought we played extremely hard, won a lot of loose pucks and created a lot of chances. We had a lot of effort and that is what this team is all about."
After Miami scored the opening goal of the night on the power play, freshman Brandon Svendsen knotted the score at one apiece after recording his third goal of the season. Senior Ryan Barnett passed the puck forward to sophomore Michael Hodgson, who was flying down the right side of the ice. He tossed a perfect pass directly onto the stick of Svendsen, who shot a wrister past MU goaltender Jeff Zatkoff.
With the game still tied at one apiece Miami scored the next two goals, both coming just over a minute apart after Marty Guerin and Nino Musitelli scored at the 14:05 and 15:06 for the only two goals of the second period.
Miami extended their lead to 4-1 after Matt Christie scored his fourth goal of the season, but the Falcons would not go down without a fight.
Sophomore James Unger tallied his fifth goal of the season, his third on the power play at the 9:38 mark. With the Falcons coming down the ice on a rush, sophomore Jonathan Matsumoto got the puck to fellow classmate Alex Foster who skated in on the MU goal. The sophomore forward drove just past the net and slide the puck back across the end line directly to Unger who did the rest.
Miami answered right back with a power-play goal of their own, just 1:22 later to extend the lead back to three, 5-2.
BGSU scored the final goal of the night after Jon Erickson recorded his first goal of the season. As Erickson exited the penalty box Matsumoto went screaming by. Rather then come back to the bench Erickson joined the rush and was rewarded with a goal after Matsumoto rattled the puck of the left pad of Zatkoff, leaving Erickson to pick up the rebound and slam the puck into the net.
For the night BGSU out shot Miami 31-28 for the night, but were held in check, going 1-for-11 with the man advantage. Miami was 2-for-9 for the night.
The 20 power-play opportunities combined were the second most this season. The BG versus Boston College game saw 21 man advantages, but the 75 combined penalty minutes was the most this season. The major reason why came at the 5:22 mark of the final period when each team sent all five guys to the penalty box after a scuffle in front of the Miami net. Within the next 50 seconds each team picked up an extra penalty apiece, placing six men in each sin bin.
Up next for the Orange and Brown is a home-and-home with Michigan State starting this Friday (Dec. 3). The Spartans will host the Falcon on Friday before BGSU will play host the following night. Both contests are slated to begin at 7:05.
