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Sunday, October 22, 2000
Sunday, October 22, 2000, BGSU Ice Arena, Bowling Green, Ohio
It’s been quite a weekend for Michigan athletics and we have one more major step to take – complete the sweep of the Bowling Green Falcons. The Wolverines played a good game on Friday night to take game one of this series, they had Saturday night off (to make way for a night football game at Bowling Green), and now we play game two of the series tonight.
With all but two games done in CCHA play this weekend we have some results to share. On Friday Northern got the best of Ferris in an overtime game, but on Saturday night the Bulldogs tied the Wildcats to get a point on the weekend. Lake Superior and Miami played trade the opponent this weekend as New Hampshire and Providence hosted the Lakers and the Redhawks. Lake Superior lost a close one to New Hampshire on Friday night while Providence took it to the Redhawks. On Saturday night Providence took it to the Lakers and New Hampshire pounded the Redhawks; not a good set of games for the CCHA. The Nannooks from Alaska-Fairbanks lost to in state rival Alaska-Anchorage on Friday night and those two teams tangle later tonight. Notre Dame split a weekend series with Northeastern, winning Friday, but loosing Saturday. Western Michigan lost a squeaker to Alabama-Huntsville on Friday night then won a squeaker against the same team on Saturday night. In their lone game of the weekend those Buckeyes from Ohio State beat Niagara. All in all, it has been a bad weekend for the CCHA against non-conference opponents. The big surprise in the conference this weekend was the Friday night loss by the Spartans to the Mavericks of Nebraska-Omaha. What made it perhaps more shocking was that it was on Spartan ice. MSU did get the best of the Mavericks on Saturday night to get a series split, but that loss creates an early season opportunity for some teams in conference standings (mainly Michigan).
For Michigan tonight they have to look for a repeat of the job they did Friday night on the Falcons. After the day of rest Michigan needs to come back to Bowling Green and jump on the Falcons early. Remind them early of the problems they had with Michigan Friday night and take any confidence they may have right away from them. I would like to see a little better conversion rate on the power play, but more importantly I want to see Michigan take far fewer penalties. If Bowling Green wants to get chippy, and they might, Michigan has to keep their cool, let the Falcons take the penalties and then make them pay on the power play. This is certainly a game that Michigan should win, a game that I would submit Michigan must win. We cannot afford to give games away against teams we should beat, not this year. The conference race is going to be real close this year making every should win, a must win (in my opinion). That will leave us with the cluster games against the other top teams in the conference. While we probably won’t win all of those, we need to win our share and let the other cluster teams beat each other up as well. Geoff Koch will not play again tonight after missing Friday night’s game. He is still nursing an injury and is also dealing with the death of an uncle in the last week. Condolences go to the Geoff and his family from the entire Wolverine family. One final note on tonight’s game. If the Wolverines win tonight it will be coach Berenson’s 300th career CCHA win, here’s to winning one for the coach tonight.
Well right now I’d say Michigan has come to play as Langfeld just blows past the Bowling Green defense and puts Michigan on the board with just 28 seconds gone in the first period. The lone assist on this goal went to Jeff Jillson. Bowling Green just got a decent shot on the Michigan goal, but Blackburn comes up with the save. After fighting for the rebound in the slot Michigan is able to move the puck out of their zone. Shouneyia and Wyzgowski worked the puck down into the Falcon zone and Wyzgowski’s shot hits the side of the net. Bowling Green didn’t recover real well after that shot and Trainor got off a shot. The rebound came out in front of the net and Swistak misfired on his shot at the open net, missing a golden opportunity to extend the Wolverine lead. There are only four minutes gone in this period and Michigan continues to bang the puck at the Bowling Green net as they keep coming at the Falcons in waves. It looks like Bowling Green will pick up the first penalty of the night to give Michigan their first chance at the power play tonight. Right from the face off UM got the puck back to Jillson at the point and Jillson blasted it right into the Falcon net to put Michigan up by two. It was a short power play, but we took advantage of the chance. Assists on this goal went to Cammalleri and Hilbert. This was a very similar goal to one scored Friday night. Bowling Green was able to steal the puck in the Michigan zone, but Blackburn sees it all the way, Michigan regains control of the puck, and clears it out of their zone. Michigan continues to keep the pressure on the Bowling Green goal as time in this period begins to run down. With just seven minutes left in the period Bowling Green picks up their second penalty of the game and Michigan will get another power play opportunity. Michigan has been working the puck fairly well on this power play and has gotten some shots off, but so far they haven’t been able to get that third goal. Just as the penalty expired Mink almost got a shot in as Michigan really put some pressure on the Falcon goal. At the end of the BG penalty the Falcons broke out of the Michigan zone with a two on one rush, but they could not take advantage. We have matching penalties handed out and we skate four on four. You have to figure that this favors the Wolverines and their greater team speed. Bowling Green got a break away and crashed the UM net one on one against Blackburn. The shot hits the post, but then trickles into the Michigan net to get Falcons within one goal late in this first period after being completely outplayed by the Wolverines to this point. As we approach the final minute of play in this period we return to five on five hockey. The first period comes to an end with Michigan holding the 2 to 1 lead. Bowling Green must be feeling pretty good being down only one goal after being outplayed the way they were through this first period. Michigan holds the commanding lead in shots on goal with a 20 to 4 count.
Let’s see if Michigan jumps on the Falcons right out of the gate in this second period. The Wolverines certainly look like their fired up as they come real close to scoring in the early seconds of this game. The Falcon netminder stopped the shot, but it appears he might have got hit in the throat as he is being attended to by the trainer. With just 23 seconds gone in the period Michigan gets their third goal of the night. The face off was to the right of the Falcon goal and Hilbert got a clean win, getting the puck back to Langfeld. Langfeld just let’s the puck fly and beats the Falcon netminder clean to extend the Wolverine lead. The lone assist on this goal went to Hilbert. That makes up for that late first period goal by the Falcons and should help to batter their confidence. Michigan continues to apply great pressure on the Falcon goal in the early going of this period. There was a 10-minute misconduct penalty, I believe for diving (I hate that penalty) given out to Bowling Green, but both teams will stay at full strength. We continue to skate five on five when Wyzgowski gets off a shot that gets deflected high into the air. The puck hits a light over the ice and the glass in the fixture comes crashing down. There is glass all over the ice and we will have a break in the action as they try to get the ice cleaned up. After about a five-minute break we are back to the action and Michigan is back on the attack. With a little under five minutes gone in the period Michigan picks up a penalty to put Bowling Green on the power play for the first time in this period. Michigan kills off the penalty without giving the Falcons any real chance at scoring a goal. Seconds after killing off that Falcon power play BG picks up a penalty to give Michigan their first power play chance of this period. Let’s see if we can take advantage of this opportunity. Michigan is not cycling the puck well on this power play and it appears that the power play will end with Michigan mounting no scoring chance. With ten seconds left in the Michigan power play Michigan picks up a penalty. The teams will skate four to a side for ten seconds and then Bowling Green will go back to the power play. Michigan kills off the Bowling Green power play as we move under the mid point of this period. Both teams have been moving up and down the ice for several minutes now. Bowling Green suddenly gets a point blank shot at Blackburn, but Blackburn comes up with a great save to maintain the two-goal Michigan lead. With 14:02 gone in the period Michigan picks up a penalty putting Bowling Green back on the power play. Trainor and Swistak almost pick up a short-handed goal in what was probably the best scoring chance of this Falcon power play. Michigan has now killed off the Falcon power play and both teams are again skating at full strength. Michigan and Bowling Green both pick up penalties as we approach the final three minutes of this period and we will skate four on four. With 2:36 left in the period Bowling Green picks up a penalty to give Michigan the late power play opportunity skating four on three. Michigan working the puck around the Falcon zone hard right now, getting some shots off, keeping the pressure on the BG goal. With 1:07 left in the period each team gets a man back and we skate five on four. Then behind the play a penalty is called on Kosick and the Michigan power play comes to an end. Bowling Green will move to the power play with around 30 seconds left in this period and they will of course start the third on the power play. The Falcons are now on the power play and Michigan has to be looking to end this period. With about 15 seconds left in the period Bowling Green gets called for a penalty to end their power play and relieve some of the pressure on the Michigan goal. The second period comes to an end with Michigan holding the 3 to 1 lead over the Falcons. After starting the period with a lot of jump Michigan seemed to slack off a little bit and the Falcons seemed to turn it up a little bit. The remainder of the period was played fairly evenly. Michigan did outshoot the Falcons 9 to 5 in this period to hold a 29 to 9 advantage in shots on goal after two.
The teams will start the third period skating four to a side and then Michigan will move to the power play. Michigan needs to have a solid third period and really take it to the Falcons, as BG seemed to gain some confidence as the second period played out. We need to take them out of this game and get out of this weekend with the two wins. Michigan is now on the power play looking to extend their lead early in this final period. Bowling Green kills off the UM power play and both teams are again skating at full strength. Both teams have been wheeling up and down the ice at a pretty good clip so far in this period. Now Bowling Green picks up a penalty to put Michigan back on the power play early in this period. Somehow Bowling Green picks up a short-handed goal to get back within one goal as they lift the puck up over Blackburn’s shoulder. Michigan needs to get something going here as the Falcons simply will not go away in this game. The Falcon penalty expires with the only goal being a short-handed goal by BG as we move under the fifteen-minute mark in this period. The first five minutes of this period saw a lot of activity at both ends of the ice. The second five minutes of this period are coming to an end and both teams have been going up and down the ice with each team getting a couple of looks at the opponents goal, but things seemed to have settled down right now. We move under the nine-minute mark with Michigan clinging to their one goal lead. Trainor got off a bullet of a shot that was blocked, but Michigan just missed getting a goal off a rebound - Murray just missed on the rebound shot. We move under the six-minute mark in this period and we’ll have a face off just inside the Michigan zone. Bowling Green was looking for an opening when they took a shot. The shot hit a leg in front of the goal and bounced into the UM net tying the game for the Falcons. Perhaps this will wake Michigan up as time begins to run down in this game. Michigan came close to retaking the lead as Ortmeyer and Kosick just missed getting the puck in the Falcon net. Ortmeyer made a great move to break into the Falcon zone and got off a big shot. The rebound came out and Kosick got off a shot, but the Falcon netminder ended up on top of the puck. We have some penalties being called right now and we will skate four on four with about 3:40 left in regulation time. Ortmeyer again busts into the Falcon zone with Shouneyia this time. Ortmeyer gets off a shot and then Shouneyia gets a shot on the rebound, but the Falcon netminder comes up with a huge save to keep the game all tied up. Both teams return to full strength with less than two minutes left in regulation time. With 1:18 left in the game Hilbert breaks into the Falcon zone with Matzka shadowing to his left. Hilbert made a great pass over to Matzka and Scottie just slid it into the net to put Michigan back in the lead. Hilbert and Langfeld each picked up an assist on this goal. With 1:06 left in the game Huntzicker gets called for a penalty and Bowling Green will finish the game on the power play – will they pull their goalie as well? Michigan takes a time out to make sure they know what they want to do in the final minute of this game. The Falcons keep their netminder in the game so it is a regular power play. Now they pull their goalie with 35 seconds left in the game to get the second extra attacker. With 6 seconds left we will have a face off to Blackburn’s right, Bowling Green with two extra attackers on the ice. Michigan clears the puck from their zone and the Wolverines hold on to win the game by a 4 to 3 score. Michigan again out shot the Falcons in this period 15 to 9 to end the game with a 44 to 18 edge in shots on goal.
It was a lot harder than expected, especially the way the first period went, but Michigan completes the weekend sweep of the Bowling Green Falcons. After the first period it looked like Michigan was going to run (or skate) away with the game, however, the Falcons had other ideas. They never gave up and did a much better job disrupting Michigan’s game in the second and third periods. After Michigan scored an early second period goal they went 38 minutes without any more goals until Scott Matzka got the game winning goal late in the third period. During those 38 minutes Bowling Green picked up a short-handed goal and an even strength goal also fairly late in the third period. In the end, however, Michigan proved to be too much for the Falcons and the Wolverines complete the season sweep over the Falcons. Next weekend Michigan returns to Yost Arena to play their only two games against the Redhawks of Miami. Again these are two games that Michigan should win and as I’ve said before, I believe they must win them. With North Dakota taking a loss this weekend and Wisconsin getting taken to the wire both nights this weekend we can probably expect some movement at the top of the polls. So that ends the weekend and Michigan remains undefeated. It wasn’t very pretty tonight, at least for two periods, but that just gives us things to work on as we move on to the next weekend of play. Geoff Koch expects to be ready to go again next weekend after missing the last two weekends. If he is ready to go next week Michigan will have all of their player’s back on the ice for the first time since the Ice Breaker tournament. Until next week, C-ya.
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