CMU DIII hockey swept by Saginaw Valley State
As Central Michigan division III hockey freshman forward Nathan Bottles headed to the net, he had a defender slashing at his skates.
With only freshman goalie Petr Mehall to beat, Bottles attempted a shot, but before it could come off his stick a Cardinals defender sent him to the ice resulting in a penalty shot.
One-on-one. Bottles vs Mehall. Taking the puck on his stick, Bottles skated towards Mehall. Stickhandling back and forth Bottles fired a shot on net and past Mehall to give the Chippewas a 2-0 lead.
“You don’t see penalty shots very often,” said head coach Tyler Cataline. “Bottles hadn’t scored lately so to see him get the penalty shot and score on it gave us some momentum.”
Battling officials, the Chippewas fell to the Cardinals 4-3.
“We outplayed them. The officials took it away from us,” said Cataline. “We were the better team in both games this weekend. Last night us coaches took the game away from our players and tonight the officials took it away from our players.”
Although Cataline had issues with the officials' calls, he understood what this weekend meant for his team.
“Saginaw is one of the top teams in our league,” said Cataline. “Us losing both games in the final minutes shows that we can compete with every team in the league and in the nation.”
The Chippewas fall to 7-5-1 on the season.
“We’ve got a great hockey team,” Cataline said. “As long as we keep playing the way we are we will be fine. My guys are confident. I mean the way our record looks, everyone is overlooking us. We are going into games as the underdogs right now and my guys have not lost any confidence.”
Freshman goalie Elijah Jones got the start in net tonight. Jones records his second loss of the season, falling to 3-1-1.
“I have a battle for number one goalie, and I have to find out who my number one is,” Cataline said. "And I can’t do that unless both goalies are playing against the top teams. It was a very tough weekend. We got two goalies that have played great for me this year and we can’t get wins.”
Knocked down to the ice, sophomore forward Isaac Gibbs fired a shot on net. Cardinals netminder Mehall kicked away the shot but was unable to stop the rebound from freshman forward Andrew Szarki, who opened the scoring for the Chippewas.
Bottles penalty shot goal extended the Chippewas lead to two as they went into the second period.
Keeping the momentum in their hands, senior forward Keelan Baker extended the Chippewas lead to three in the second.
Taking control of the third period, graduate student Tyler Russel scored on the powerplay to make the score 3-1. Forty seconds later graduate student Garrett Lesser cut the lead to one.
On the powerplay once again with junior forward Jay Naidu in the box for tripping, freshman forward Logan O’ Flanagan fired from the hash marks and past Jones' blocker tying the game at three.
Once again as time wound down and overtime looked to be in the future, the Cardinals scored with just over a minute left to secure a 4-3 victory once again.
The Chippewas have yet another late night as they take on Adrian on Friday, Nov. 18 at Martin Ice Arena. Puck drop is set for 9:30 p.m.
“We will sleep on this and show back up and get ready for Adrian,” said Cataline. “We are going to prepare like we do every week. High-intensity practices and show up Friday at our home rink and hopefully beat the crap out of Adrian.”
