Men's Hockey
Buckeyes Use Second Period Scoring Spree to Complete Sweep
- Remain in League Lead.
By Paula C. Weston
The Buckeyes solidified their grasp of first place in
the CCHA and completed a weekend sweep of the Northern Michigan Wildcats
with a 5-1 matinee win at the Schott Sunday afternoon.
After a scoreless first period, the Buckeyes blew open the game with
five unanswered goals in the second, including three in a two-minute
span - two by freshman Sam Campbell 1:02 apart.
"I was proud of how [we] came back in the second period,"
said OSU head coach John Markell.
"I want to compliment Northern Michigan. I think they played
a great game. Certainly, the momentum could have swung a different
way if we hadn't scored that second goal on the seven-minute power
play."
OSU enjoyed a seven-minute man-advantage that was the result of Wildcat
Pat Bateman's two-minute minor for roughing, five-minute major for
head-butting, and game disqualification.
"The initial penalty, he just grabbed my head and took me down,"
said captain JB Bittner, "and then he head-butted [Sean] Collins."
The head-butt resulted in an automatic major and game disqualification,
giving the Buckeyes the extended advantage at 6:46 in the second.
Tom Fritsche and Domenic Maiani made quick of the power play when
Maiani tipped in Fritsche's shot from the top of the slot at 7:05.
Campbell's first goal came toward the end of the power play at 13:11,
his second just after it expired, at 14:13, a breakaway on which he
recovered his own rebound first blocked by NMU's Matt Maunu, giving
OSU an unexpected 3-0 lead.
Collins made it 4-0 at 15:04, taking Rod Pelley's pass-back after
Pelley won a faceoff in the left NMU dot, then firing clean past the
surprised Wildcat goaltender Bill Zaniboni from the top of the circle.
At 18:43, just after Wildcat Bobby Selden hit the right pipe on the
NMU power play, Lee Spector took the puck the length of the ice and
grazed the right post to score shorthanded and unassisted, making
it 5-0 after two.
Andrew Cotnois ruined Ian Keserich's shutout at 16:14 in the third
scoring even strength, the only Wildcat goal of the weekend. The decision
to play Keserich in favor of junior Dave Caruso, who had last night's
2-0 win, was a "coaches' decision," said Markell.
"It's nothing big, just something I'd like to keep within our
team, within our family," said Markell. "We have two capable
goaltenders."
Keserich said, "I was informed maybe two-and-a-half hours before
the game that I'd be playing."
Maiani's goal was his second of the weekend, his sixth in eight games.
Five of OSU's eight goals on the weekend came from freshmen. In their
last five games, all wins, the Buckeyes have outscored their opponents
24-5.
"I'm not used to it," said Bittner.
"I think we have a couple of freshmen there that are really
putting some points on the board...and I think that's the big difference.
"We've always had only one freshman chipping in offensively.
That's the big thing; we're getting freshmen players to chip in right
away," Bittner said.
"Going into this game tonight, we don't know who's going to
score," said Markell.
"It was pretty evident who had to score for us last year. When
they were having an off game, we thought, 'Uh-oh. We're going to have
to win this one 2-1.'
"Any night one of these kids can explode and they're hungry
to do that, which is great.
"They're naïve in a way. That's what's fun about standing
behind the bench right now.
"You know these kids are going to be there and you see it in
the upperclassmen...that they feed off that.
"And our younger guys feed off our experienced guys.
" It's a nice little tandem to have."
The Buckeyes were 2-for-7 on the power play, the Wildcats 0-for-9.
Keserich made 31 saves in his second win of the season. Zaniboni had
29 stops in his first loss of the year.
The game was the second league loss of the season for the Wildcats
(8-3-0, 6-2-0 CCHA). In four games at Value City Arena dating back
to 2001, the Wildcats are winless against the Buckeyes and have scored
just two goals in the VCA.
Ohio State (9-3-0, 7-1-0 CCHA) increases its CCHA point total to
14 and extends its first-place lead to four over second-place Michigan.
Going into the weekend, OSU and Michigan were tied, but the Wolverines
were idle this weekend.
"We had a good home stand here and we knew that if we could
get maybe some separation from some other teams in the league and
have people chasing us - I know Michigan only has one loss also -
but we wanted to play that [way] this year instead of trying to play
catch-up," said Bittner. "Take care of business early in
the season, and I think we did a good job of that this weekend."
Next weekend, the Buckeyes head to Omaha for two against the Mavericks.
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