Bowling Green State University Athletics
Falcons Can't Rebound After Allowing Lake Superior Four Goals In First Period
January 25, 2009 | Ice Hockey
Jan. 25, 2009
BOWLING GREEN, OHIO - The Falcon hockey team took the first four penalties of the game Saturday night at the Ice Arena against Lake Superior and paid dearly for it. The Lakers converted three of the four opportunities on the power play and made the Falcons play catch up the rest of the game - something they were not successful in doing - dropping an 8-4 decision.
BG was whistled for a penalty just 17 seconds into the game and LSSU lit the lamp at the 1:53 mark. BG then took a pair of penalties later in the period, 22 seconds apart, and again the Lakers converted. First, they converted a 5-on-3 situation with just 12 seconds left in that power play and then converted 27 seconds later with a 5-on-4 advantage to take a 3-0 lead.
The Falcons got on the board at the 18:32 mark of the first stanza as BG converted with the man-advantage for the only time in the game as the top line of sophomores David Solway and Dan Sexton along with senior alternate captain Brandon Svendsen combined to score for the seventh time this season. Solway knocked home his 11th of the season with his linemates picking up the assists.
The Falcons thought they now had a good chance to get out of the period trailing by just two goals after getting outshot, 16-7.
But, that would not be the case in the first period or at several other times over the last 40 minutes of the game.
Lake Superior scored a back-breaking goal with just one second left in the first period to take a 4-1 lead to the locker room.
The Lakers then scored just 2:04 into the second period which gave them a 5-1 lead and started a trend where the teams would alternate goals the rest of the way, something the Falcons could not afford to do if they wanted to get back in the contest.
Svendsen scored a short-handed tally, his third such goal of the season, at the 8:48 mark of the middle period, assisted by Solway, to cut into the deficit before the Lakers answered at the 11:05 mark. The Falcons came back to close the gap once again, just 26 seconds after the LSSU score, as sophomore Wade Finegan scored his first collegiate goal directing in a pass from junior captain Kyle Page.
But, as they had done in each of the other two periods, Lake Superior scored an early goal in a period. This time at 1:34 of the third period to make the score 7-3. Sexton scored his 12th goal of the season at the 10:33 mark, with Svendsen getting the assist, and LSSU notched an empty-net short-handed goal with just 1:29 remaining to close out the scoring.
BG's top line accounted for seven of the nine points in the game as Solway and Sexton had one goal and one assist each and Svendsen had three points (1-2) for the third time this season, equalling his career high. For the weekend series against Lake Superior, the top line produced 11 points (4-7), its second-best weekend output of the season.
With the loss, the Falcons fall to 9-14-3 overall and 6-11-1-0 in Central Collegiate Hockey Association play while the Lakers improve to 7-11-8 and 4-8-6-1 in league play. LSSU sophomore Rick Schofield had two goals and two assists to lead them to the split.
Bowling Green, which is now 2-9-2 in Saturday games this season, was one-of-five with the man-advantage while Lake Superior converted three of their five opportunities up a man. BG came into the game having killed off 47 of the last 52 power-play chances for the opposition.
LSSU sophomore goalie Brian Mahoney-Wilson made 16 saves before having to leave the game near the end of the second period after getting injured in a collision with Svendsen. Junior Pat Inglis came in and finished the game making 14 saves. The Falcons also used two goalies, senior Jimmy Spratt played the first period and was credited with 12 stops while sophomore Nick Eno finished the game making 16 saves.
The Falcons, who have played 13 of their last 16 games at home, will now embark on the last 10 games of the season, of which seven are on the road, beginning with a weekend series at Miami next weekend (Jan. 30-31). The Falcons have not had an overnight trip since their earlier series with Lake Superior on Nov. 7-8.
head coach Scott Paluch "The penalties in the first period and our inability to kill them put us in a bad situation early on. I thought our penalty-kill, which has been pretty good for us lately, had an opportunity to set the tone early on with a couple kills, but we didn't do that. We just could never get ourselves close enough after that."
"We gave up too many swing goals (goals early and/or late in periods). We were not able to take over control or get some momentum in the game and credit Lake Superior for that."
"We never had a chance 5-on-5 to establish anything after the start. It was a difficult game that way."
