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Bowling Green State University Athletics
Bowling Green State University
Wilfrid Laurier
Hockey Starts Homecoming Festivities With, 5-1, Win Over Wilfrid Laurier
October 04, 2008 | Ice Hockey
Oct. 4, 2008
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BOWLING GREEN, Ohio - The Bowling Green State University hockey team kicked off the homecoming festivities on with a 5-1 victory over the Wilfrid Laurier Golden Hawks Saturday afternoon at the BGSU Ice Arena. Senior Kevin Schmidt lead all Falcon scorers with two points via a goal and an assist recorded in the third period of play, as the BGSU senior accounted for four of the team's total 10 points.
Though the Falcons notched the win, the Hawk's Kelly Thomson began the day's scoring with a goal at the 8:13 mark in the second period. That would be the last time the Golden Hawks would get the best of Falcon goalkeeper Jimmy Spratt though for the game, as the Chesterfield, Mich. native made 17 saves to support the rest of the Falcon defense.
His counterpart, WLU goaltender Jeff McDougald kept the Falcons at bay for 32-plus minutes before the Hawks went with backup, Mike Thomson, to clean up the rest. After the switch, the Falcons attacked Thomson ferociously. Senior co-captain, Tim Maxwell, evened things up at one on a power play goal off passes from Cepis and senior Russ Sinkewich at the 4:37 mark and the Falcon offense took flight from there.
From the beginning of the third period on, the Falcon offense could not be stopped as they went on to score four more unanswered goals. Junior Kai Kantola continued the Falcon scoring with another power play goal at the 15:51 mark with assists credited to Sophomore Dan Sexton and Kevin Schmidt. With the score now 2-1. Schmidt re-entered the Falcon scoring column, this time with a power-play goal that went unassisted as he broke away from the pack and beat Thomson over his right shoulder to make the score, 3-1, with the Falcons on top.
The offense for the brown and orange did not stop there. With 5:17 remaining in regulation, sophomore David Solway cleaned up a loose puck in front of the Hawks net for a Falcon goal to stretch the lead to three. Sophomore Wade Finnegan would be credited with the assist.
Head coach, Scott Paluch, said of his offense, "We committed to shooting more pucks. I thought we were really trying to fine tune our way into this. We shot more and ended up getting them spread up more with those shots."
Despite the 4-1 lead, the Falcons did not stop the scoring before regulation's end. With two minutes and change remaining, freshman Nick Bailen intercepted a Golden Hawk pass and set up shop on the left wing just before delivering a lightning bolt straight into the WLU net to increase the Falcon lead to 5-1.
The offense was not the only highlight of this exhibition match, however. Superb blue-line defense by the Falcons limited the Golden Hawks to only 18 total shots on net, with seven of those coming in the third period.
With the end of regulation resulting in a 5-1 BGSU win, the CCHA requested the Falcons to test a new rule adopted for the conference implementing a new shoot-out rule for games that end in a tie. Despite the score favoring the Falcons, the two teams agreed to participate in a "mock shoot-out" to see how the new rule would fair. The Falcons sent sophomores Dan Sexton, Cepis and senior Kevin Schmidt out to take the Falcon's shots, yet all came up empty. For WLU, two of their three shooters netted pucks against Jimmy Spratt to "win" the mock-shootout.
With NCAA regulations opening up official team practices the day of this game, the Falcons were at a sure disadvantage against the Golden Hawks, as they had already participated in three games thus far, winning all three. Falcon defenseman, Kevin Schmidt, remained confident saying, "We've only had one practice and it went well. We came into the game feeling pretty confident about it [the game] actually. The feelings just transitioned right into the game then."
Coach Paluch got more than just a win out this exhibition match with the Golden Hawks. "We got a chance to look at the young guys," said Paluch. "Nick (Bailen) was really solid out there. I like the way Solway and Svendsen kind of teamed up on the penalty line together and were pretty good killing penalties. They gave us good energy out there. Cepis showed some tremendous speed and poise out there. I was pleased all the way through the lineup."
When all was said and done, the Falcons left the BGSU Ice Arena with a victory with the final score 5-1. The Falcons now begin to train for its regular-season opener against the RIT Tigers on Friday, October 10th. Game time is set for 7:05 p.m. Friday night. For more details, visit bgsufalcons.com later in the week.
