Bowling Green State University Athletics
Bowling Green State University
FERRIS STATE
Falcons Suffer Setback to Ferris State, 6-5
January 16, 2006 | Ice Hockey
Jan. 16, 2006
BOWLING GREEN, Ohio - The Bowling Green State University hockey team dropped a heart-breaker Monday night at the BGSU Ice Arena to Ferris State 6-5. The Falcon offense continued its strong play, scoring the five goals, but four power-play goals by the Bulldogs doomed the Falcons.
"For two periods their transition forced us to take some penalties and their power play beat our penalty kill," said head coach Scott Paluch. "Their power play was the difference in the game.
Dan Riedel scored one of his three goals on the night at the 8:41 mark of the first period to spot the Bulldogs an early 1-0 lead.
BGSU (11-13-1, 7-10-1 CCHA) pulled even with Ferris State just two minutes later after Rich Meloche picked up a rebound off the stick of Alex Foster and put it in the net. The goal by Meloche was his fourth of the game. Also of note, the Foster assist was his 40th point of the year, tops in the country.
Sophomore Ben Geelan gave the Falcons their only lead of the night at 2-1 after he scored his fourth goal of the year at the 13:46 mark of the first. Foster fed the puck up to sophomore Jonathan Matsumoto , who found Geelan all alone at the left circle. The sophomore skated in uncontested and went five-hole on FSU's Mitch O'Keefe.
Ferris State (10-8-5, 5-6-4 CCHA) scored the next two goals of the game to reclaim the lead, but a goal by James Unger once again knotted the score, this time 3-3. The junior grabbed a pass from Brett Pilkington, skated around several FSU defenders, pulled up at the right circle and fired a wrister into the upper-right hand corner of the goal, just over the glove of O'Keefe, but the tie would not last long.
The Bulldogs would once again answer back, this time recording two goals late in the second period in the span of 16 seconds to stretch the lead back to two.
The two teams entered the third period with FSU holding onto a 5-3 lead, but just 37 seconds into the final period freshman Brandon Svendsen cut that lead in half, at 5-4. Bryan Dobek found the freshman flying down the right side. Svendsen fired one shot, grabbed his own rebound and jammed the puck into the net, but FSU would once again claim a two goal advantage just minutes later.
Reidel recorded his third and final goal of the game at the 4:56 mark of the third for a 6-4 lead.
The Falcons would not go quietly as they fired 21 shots on net in the final period, but were unable to score until Matsumoto scored the games final goal with just nine seconds remaining.
For the game BGSU held a 40-31 shot advantage,.
FSU was 4-for-8 on the power play, while BGSU was 1-for-5.
O'Keefe recorded 35 saves in the win, while Jon Horrell picked up 25 saves on the night.
Up next for the Falcons is a home-and-home series with the Wolverines of Michigan. Friday night's contest with UofM is in Ann Arbor, Mich., and will be televised on FSN Detroit (at 7:35 p.m.). BGSU will play host on Saturday night (7:05 p.m.)
