Sports
Ohio Dismantled in Second Game of Weekend
By: Nick Hart
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After a thrilling victory on Friday night, the ACHA number four-ranked Ohio hockey team followed that performance with its worst loss of the year, falling to the number five-ranked Minot State Beavers on Saturday by a score of 7-1. The defeat drops the Bobcats’ record to 15-3-2 on the season, and will likely result in the swapping of the two teams in the next ACHA nationwide rankings.
“We showed up tonight feeling satisfied with ourselves after last night’s win, and we really didn’t come ready to play,” said Head Coach Dan Morris after the clubbing his team experienced at the hand of the Beavers.
Six of Minot State’s seven goals came off of the rush or breakaways, a weakness in Ohio’s defense that has been a problem all year. “We got caught watching the play and didn’t react to their transition,” Morris quipped. “Tonight, we tried to go north when we should have been going south in a couple situations, and we gave up a lot of breakaway goals on odd-man rushes.”
Minot state scored on three different breakaways, twice in the first period on Matt Michno, and then once more early in the second period when Cam McGeough beat Fedor Dushkin with a highlight reel deke.
Dushkin came in to relieve Michno at the start of the second period after Michno allowed three goals on nine shots in the first. As a result of the 3-0 lead the Beavers carried into the second period, Michno was also credited with his first loss of the season.
Not all of the blame can be shouldered by Michno, though. Seeing his team struggle in the first period, Morris replaced his starting goalie in an attempt to spark his team.
“We pulled Matt and put (Dushkin) in to try and get a reaction from the guys, and nothing changed,” Morris said.
The only spark the team seemed to respond to came about halfway through the second frame when Michael Harris ripped a slap shot into the Beavers’ goal 11 seconds into a four-on-three power play. The momentum created from that goal quickly dwindled, as Minot State smothered the Ohio offense with hard backchecking, solid team defense, which resulted in 17 of Ohio’s shots being blocked, and several sparkling glove saves by Minot State goalie Wyatt Waselenchuk.
Minot State’s six other goals came from Brody Haygarth, Logan Herauf, Kyle Stephens, Daniel Lamb, and two goals by Garrett Ferguson.
Ohio will look to bounce back from the loss next weekend in Kent, Ohio, when it takes on in-state rival Kent State (4-14-0).