Bowling Green State University Athletics
Falcons Continue CCHA Play Against Lake Superior
November 04, 2008 | Ice Hockey
Nov. 4, 2008
BOWLING GREEN, OHIO -
THIS WEEK
The Bowling Green State University hockey team will take to the road for the third time this season as they battle Lake Superior in a Central Collegiate Hockey Association series Friday and Saturday night. Both games begin at 7:05 p.m. at Taffy Abel Arena (4,000).
TELEVISION
The Bowling Green State University hockey team will have several games televised this season. The Falcons are a part of five games on a Saturday night CCHA package, which is produced by Comcast in Detroit, Mich. The five games will also be shown live on the NHL Network in Canada. The five games include the Dec. 13 contest at Notre Dame, the Jan. 17 contest at home against Michigan, the Jan. 24 game at home against Lake Superior, the Feb. 14 game at home with Ferris State and the Feb. 28 battle with Western Michigan in Kalamazoo. The Feb. 21 game at home with Michigan State will be broadcast by Fox Sports Net. The Falcons are also part of a Friday night NHL Network Game of the Week package that will air live on NHL network. The Notre Dame at Bowling Green game on Dec. 12 is part of that package as is the Dec. 19 game at Bowling Green with Clarkson. The Falcons contest at Miami on Jan. 30 is the third game in that package. The Dec. 12 and 19 games will air live on the NHL Network in both the U.S. and Canada. The Jan. 30 game will air live only in the United States. In addition, all other home games not included in the other three packages will be carried locally by BCSN.
TOP LINE IS OFFENSIVE
The Falcons top line of senior Brandon Svendsen and sophomores David Solway and Dan Sexton had another productive weekend, their best of the season so far. The trio each had four points in the weekend split with Nebraska-Omaha accounting for five of the six goals the Falcons scored and seven of the 10 assists credited to BG players. The three players, the top three scorers on the team, have accounted for 26 of the 50 points by BG players this season. The line scored seven points (3-4) the first weekend of the season, five points (2-3) the second weekend and two points (1-1) against Alaska. Of the 20 goals scored this season by the icers, the top BG line has accounted for 11 of those and at least one of them has a point on 16 of the 20 markers. Two of the players have been involved in six of the goals and they have combined as a line to score twice, both times over the weekend, one of those being the game-winner Friday night against UNO with just over three minutes left. At least two of the players from the line have had a hand in six of the last seven BG goals covering the last four games.
MORE SVENDSEN
Senior Brandon Svendsen, the left-winger on the line, had two assists in the Friday win over UNO and he had one goal and one assist in the Saturday loss. The Roseville, Minn. native is tied for the team lead with four goals, two of those on the power-play to tie for the team lead. He had a +1 on-ice rating for the weekend. Svendsen has a point in four games this season. He is well on his way to the best season of his career with a 19-point season as a freshman his best. He has already equaled his goal total from all of last season when he scored 13 points. Svendsen is third on the team with seven points, which ties him for 13th in the conference.
MORE SOLWAY
Sophomore David Solway had a goal in both games over the weekend and added both his assists in the Friday victory to have a hand in all three markers. For the Green Bay, Wis. native the three-point evening was the best of his young career and the second time this season he has had a multiple-point game. Solway has a point in five games this season and he is one of the three players on the team with a team-high four goals. Solway had nine goals and 16 assists in his initial Falcon season. Solway is second on the team and tied for seventh in the CCHA with eight points this season. He has an on-ice rating of plus-3.
MORE SEXTON
Sophomore Dan Sexton had two goals in the Friday win over Nebraska-Omaha and came back to notch a pair of assists in the series ender. Sexton's effort Friday was the first multiple-goal game of his career and included the game-winner, also the first of his career, with just over three minutes left. Sexton leads the team with 11 points, tied for fourth in the CCHA, and eight assists, which ties him for the lead in the conference. He has four multi-point efforts this season, including a three-assist effort in the season-opener against RIT. He has a point in a team-high six games this season. The Apple Valley, Minn. native had seven goals and 14 assists as a freshman. He has an on-ice rating of plus-3.
PLAYING THE BEST
The Falcons will play 14 games this season against teams who qualified for the NCAA Tournament last season. The Falcons have two home-and-home weekends against national runner-up Notre Dame (Nov. 21-22; Dec 12-13), a Jan. 16-17 home-and-home series with defending Central Collegiate Hockey Association champion Michigan and a Feb. 20 and 21 home-and-home series with 2006-07 national champion Michigan State. In non-conference action, BG has a two-game home weekend series against Minnesota State (Nov. 28-29) and Clarkson (Dec. 19-20). BG has already played defending national champion Boston College and Niagara this season.
HOME COOKING
After making two trips in the first three weeks of the season, the Falcons will now look to use the friendly confines of the BGSU Ice Arena to get on a roll. Beginning with the series against Nebraska-Omaha last weekend, BGSU plays 12 of its next 16 games at home, and looking even further down the schedule, 15 of their next 20. After concluding a home series with Lake Superior on Jan. 24, the Falcons will have played 17 of their first 26 games at home. But, of course, then the schedule flip-flops and BG will play seven of their last 10 on the road to conclude the regular season.
SPRATT AMONG CAREER LEADERS
Senior goaltender Jimmy Spratt has started all eight games this season. Spratt recorded his first career shutout in the 1-0 win over Alaska earlier this season turning away all 30 shots he faced. He has allowed three of fewer goals in five of the eight games and has a 2.87 goals-against, almost a full goal beter than his career GAA coming into this season. He has just the one game of 30 or more saves and has a .880 save percentage. In four league games this season, Spratt has a 2.27 goals-against and a .906 save percentage. He has now played in 74 career games, with 71 of those starts. Spratt, who has 1,797 career saves, needs just 73 saves to move into 10th-place on the BGSU career list. Angelo Libertucci (89-93) currently holds down the #10 spot with 1,869 saves. Spratt is also 10th on the BGSU career list for saves in CCHA games with 1,324. He is 71 saves behind Mike David's (1979-83) total of 1,395.
ENO IS WEEK-TO-WEEK
The other half of last year's goaltending duo, sophomore Nick Eno, has not played this season because of a left ankle sprain. He has practiced the last two weeks and his return is expected in the near future. Eno, who sported a 12-10-0 record, a 2.79 goals-against average and .905 save percentage last year, became the third Falcon netminder to earn CCHA All-Rookie Team honors. He joined Bob Petrie (1994) and Aaron Elllis (1993) as the other first-year Falcon goalies to earn those accolades. The Howell, Mich. native's goals-against average last season ranks seventh on the single-season BG list, while his save percentage is tied for seventh-best.
POWER PLAY GETS ON THE BOARD
Even though the Falcons had a power-play goal in each of the first four games of the season, BG came into last weekend struggling to find the back of the net when they had the manpower advantage. BG broke an 0-for-18 streak, over a three-game span, scoring on their first power-play opportunity in the Saturday contest against Nebraska-Omaha. The Falcons would get a second man-advantage marker in the third period. The Falcons had converted just one of their last 31 opportunities on the power-play, dating back to early in the Boston College game, before getting on the board twice in the game Saturday. The Falcons have recorded 79 shots on their 54 power-plays this season. By comparison, BG's opponents have just 39 shots on 43 power-play opportunities.
FALCON QUICK HITS
BG returns 21 letterwinners from a year ago and seven of their top 10 scorers...the Falcons have yet to be outshot this season and have a 281-192 edge, an average of over 11 more shots per contest...BG had an 83-42 edge in shots over UNO last weekend...in BG's four home games this season, the Falcons have a 164-88 edge in shots, an average of 40.3 shots per game...BG has recorded 30 or more shots in six of eight games...BG has given up a goal in only 11 of the 24 periods this season, but in nine of those 11 periods in which the opposition has scored, they have yielded two or more tallies...by comparison, BG has scored in 16 periods, but they have more than one goal in only three of those 16 periods...BG had a string of 11 successive periods in which they scored at least one goal earlier this season...the only player to score a point in the BG win over UNO last Friday other than someone on the Falcons' top line of Brandon Svendsen, David Solway and Dan Sexton was freshman defenseman Nick Bailen whose first career point was an assist...junior forward Kai Kantola is tied for the team lead with four goals notching his most recent tally to tie the Saturday game against UNO about midway through the third period...Kantola had six goals in 28 games last season and came into this season with 11 goals in 64 career games...he is tied for fifth in the CCHA with his four goals this season...the Falcons are averaging just under seven penalties per game for an average of 16 minutes a game...senior defenseman Tim Maxwell leads the team with a plus-4 on-ice rating...the Falcons enjoyed a lead for more time than they have all season during the weekend series with UNO...BG held the lead for 62:23 of the 120 minutes over the weekend...coming into that series, BG had led for only 26:29 of the possible 360 minutes in the first six games of the season.
LAKE SUPERIOR NOTES
The Lakers return 19 players from last year's team that finished 10-20-7 overall and 7-15-6 in the CCHA...of course, Bowling Green, as the #7 seed, needed overtime in the deciding third game of their first round CCHA series with Lake Superior, the #10 seed, last year to eliminate the Lakers...the Lakers were 7-8-1 at home last season...LSSU opened the season at home with a 2-2 tie against Minnesota-Duluth and a 3-2 loss to Michigan Tech...since then, the Lakers have been on the road for CCHA series with Ohio State and Ferris State...each weekend, they won the Friday contest before losing the series finale...junior foward Zac MacVoy led LSSU last season with 27 points (8-19) and has eight points (4-4) in six games this season to lead the team...MacVoy had a pair of goals in the Lakers loss to Ferris State on Saturday and four points in the weekend series...the transfer from Michigan led the team with 19 assists last season...he is sixth in the CCHA in overall scoring...two players, juniors Steven Kaunisto (1-4) and Nathan Perkovich (2-3), have five points..Kaunisto, a defenseman, had 16 points last season...Perkovich, a forward, had four (2-2) of his five points in one game, their Oct. 17 contest with Ohio State...he was third on the team a year ago with 25 points...freshman forward Fred Cassiani has three goals this season and ranks second among first-year players in the CCHA in that category...sophomore defenseman Dillin Stonehouse, fourth on the team with three (1-2) points, leads the team with a plus-4 on-ice rating while MacVoy is plus-3...LSSU has used two goalies this season...sophomore Brian Mahoney-Wilson has played in four games, starting two...he has a 2-2 record with a 2.56 goals-against, eighth in the CCHA, and a .932 save percenage, third in the conference...he has stopped 123 of the 132 shots he has faced...junior Pat Inglis has an 0-1 record with a 2.78 goals-against and a .918 save percentage, seventh in the CCHA...he has started all three games he has played this season...head coach Jim Roque is in his fourth season with the Lakers and has a 48-56-18 record...the former Laker player is in his 12th season as a coach at LSSU having previously served as an assistant under both Frank Anzalone and Jeff Jackson...the Lakers are converting on just over 12% of their power-play attempts (5-of-41) while they are killing off just over 85% of the chances by their opposition.
LAST WEEK
Bowling Green won its second game in a week in the final four minutes of a game to open its weekend series against Nebraska-Omaha with a 3-2 victory...BG, which had won the previous Friday at Alaska on a goal at the 16:46 mark of the third period, won Friday's game with UNO at the 16:44 mark of the final stanza on sophomore Dan Sexton's second goal of the game and his first career game-winner...linemate David Solway gave the Falcons a 1-0 lead in the first period and Sexton scored at 18:18 of the opening stanza to give BG a 2-0 lead...UNO scored early (37 seconds in) final period and at the midway point to tie the game before Sexton won it...senior goalie Jimmy Spratt made 18 saves to get the win as the Falcons had a 44-20 edge in shots...in the series finale, it was Bowling Green who came back to tie the game about midway through the third period only to see UNO score twice, once into an empty net, to gain a split with a 5-3 victory...the Falcons scored the only goal of the first period before three unanswered tallies by the Mavericks in the second period gave them the upper hand...BG answered with goals at 4:55 and 8:31 of the third to tie it, but UNO would get the last two tallies...again, the Falcons had a big advantage in shots, 39-22, and had two power-play goals to one for UNO, but could not regain the lead in the third period...Spratt had 17 saves for BG...the BG line of senior Branden Svendsen, Solway and Sexton accounted for five of the six BG goals on the weekend and seven of the 10 assists for a 12-point weekend.
NEXT WEEK
The Falcons return home for a weekend series (Nov. 14-15) against Northern Michigan at the BGSU Ice Arena. Both games begin at 7:05 p.m.
