Bowling Green State University Athletics
Hockey Quotes From Saturday's Loss To Northern Michigan
November 18, 2007 | Ice Hockey
Nov. 18, 2007
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BOWLING GREEN, Ohio - BGSU coach Scott Paluch and junior defenseman Kevin Schmidt met with the media following Saturday's game against Northern Michigan. The Falcons fell 3-2, as they tasted defeat for just the third time this season.
Head Coach Scott Paluch
Opening Statement
"I thought tonight we saw another hard fought college hockey game. As I mentioned last night, our games are going to come down to the third period and the last 10 minutes of a hockey game and this time they made the plays and they scored the goals to win the game. So a lot of credit goes to Northern [Michigan]. They battled hard and won the game in the key moments of the game."
What was the difference you saw in your opponent tonight, compared to last night?
"I thought they were a hard working team. I don't think there's any question about that. We knew that coming in that this was a well-coached team and their record is no indication of how good a team they are. They're a good hockey team and they've played a brutal schedule out of the blocks. They played hard tonight and of course, as in most series, they played with a lot of desperation following last night's loss. But they're a good hockey team and they have one of the best players in the country in [Nick] Sirota and they made the plays they had to win the game."
What was the difference in your offense tonight?
"Well I think one of the biggest differences was the fact that Reid Ellingson made a lot of saves for them. We had more shots tonight than we did last night and he just made the saves. He played an outstanding game and kept us at two goals. I still think we generated chances though. There wasn't much going on in that second period; that was just a Saturday night dogfight in that period and neither team was able to do anything. That's just the way games are in our league though and it was a battle. Things opened up again in the third period with two desperate teams going after a win and we get 17 shots and they get 11, but they score twice and we scored once and they win the hockey game."
What do you and your team take away from this weekend, obviously you don't get the sweep like you wanted, but did you see some things you liked out of your team?
"I saw a lot of things. We continue to be a threat on the power play. The short-handed goals are something we have to address though. I think we're seeing some real good play out of a lot of guys and we've of liked to have gotten both wins, but like I said, you got to give credit to Northern [Michigan] they did a real good job."
Though the pucks weren't going in the net tonight, you still had to be pleased with the pressure you were seeing up front.
"Well you look down the stretch of the game there and we ring one off the crossbar, we go one off the goalie mask and then Jacob Cepis had two hacks with the goalie down in the crease. We went at it hard. We had plenty of chances to tie the game and if you look at it, we had the same situation a couple weeks ago at Western Michigan where one of the pucks goes in, we tie it and win it in overtime. Tonight the puck didn't go in when we needed to tie the game, but we still did a lot of the things necessary to get that game tied up."
Junior Forward Kevin Schmidt
What was the mood like in the locker room following the game?
"It was a real learning experience for us. If you don't show up every night you're going to lose and we knew that coming in too, but it just shows the strength of the league. Now we have a quick turnaround on Tuesday and we're just going to have to show up and play better. But we're looking forward to the challenge that Notre Dame will present us on Tuesday."
Does a loss like this wake you guys up a little bit? "Yeah. It's probably a good test for us early on. We've had some success and you're going to lose a game here and there, but we're going to have to bounce back and Tuesday night is going to be a good test. It should be fun and it should be interesting to see what kind of team we are and what kind of character we have."
