Bowling Green State University
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WESTERN MICHIGAN
BGSU Completes Weekend Sweep of WMU with 5-2 Victory
February 19, 2005 | Ice Hockey
Feb. 19, 2005
Bowling Green, Ohio - Bowling Green made it a weekend sweep of Western Michigan on Saturday night with a 5-2 victory in front of 4,309 in attendance. The win keeps BGSU in fifth place in the Central Collegiate Hockey Association and moved it to within one point of Nebraska-Omaha for fourth place with four games remaining.
"I really thought our guys came out as strong in the first period as we had all year," said BGSU Coach Scott Paluch. "I thought we had some tremendous jump (in the first period). On a whole, after last weekend's special teams performance, throughout this weekend both our power play and penalty kill were a lot more sharp and had a lot to do with our success."
For the second night in a row, BGSU capitalized on its first power-play opportunity thanks to sophomore James Unger at 9:07 of the first period. Ryan Minnabarriet and Brett Pilkington assisted.
Pilkington then made it a 2-0 Falcon lead at 12:56 with assist from Unger and Derek Whitmore. WMU's Jeff Pierce scored a PPG at 15:11 to cut the Falcon lead in half, but Jonathan Matsumoto scored his team-leading 15th goal at 18:14 to give BGSU a 3-1 lead after one period. Defensemen Jon Sitko and Mike Nesdill assisted.
Freshman Ben Geelan then built the Falcon lead to three goals, 4-1, at 5:41 with his sixth of the season, thanks to helpers from Don Morrison and Ryan Minnabarriet. WMU's leading scorer, Brent Walton, tallied his 18th goal of the year at 7:20 of the second period. Unger ended the scoring at 6:22 of the third period with his second goal of the night and 12th of the season with assist from Mike Falk and Jonathan Matsumoto.
BGSU held a 28-26 shot advantage for the game, including 15-9 in the deciding first period. Both teams ended 1-for-6 on the power play.
Jordan Sigalet, celebrating his 24th birthday, stopped 24 of 26 shots faced while WMU's Eric Marvin had 23 saves.
"We played a solid game all around," said Sigalet. "It's probably the best defensive weekend we've had all year.
Sigalet was excited about not only the two wins, but the money that was raised by fans at the two games.
"Last week was a really busy week. I just wanted to make it look as professional as possible and raise as much money as possible. To hear that we're almost to $9,000 now is remarkable. I just want to thank everyone that's supported it."
BGSU improved to 15-11-4 overall and 12-9-3 in the CCHA. WMU drops to 11-17-2 overall and 6-16-2 in the league. The Falcons host Michigan State on Friday, Feb. 25, before travelling to East Lansing on Saturday, Feb. 26. Saturday's game will be broadcasted live on FoxSports Detroit and tape delay on FoxSports Ohio. Check local listings for the air time on FSN Ohio.
BGSU Post-Game Notes...
• MS Awareness Weekend at the Ice Arena raised $8,285 during the two home Falcon hockey games, including nearly $5,000 on Saturday night.
• The 4,309 in attendance marked the third crowd of 4,000 plus this season. The last time BGSU had this many games with 4,000-plus was in 1999-2000 (three).
• BGSU notched its eighth game of the year with five or more goals on Saturday night. The last time BGSU had this many games with five or more goals in a season was 1999-2000 when it recorded 11 such games.
• FR Jonathan Matsumoto improved his point streak and goal streak to a career-best five games with 6-2--8 in his last five games. Linemate Mike Falk moved his point streak to five games (1-6--7), also, and has a point in 13 of his last 15 games (6-10--16).
•FR defenseman Mike Nesdill has an assist in each of his last three games.
•SR Jordan Sigalet lowered his goals-against-average to 2.64 and raised his save pct. to .923. Sigalet has held 15 opponents to two goals or less this year and 10 opponents to one goal or less in 27 appearances.
