Central Michigan DII hockey falls to Lake Superior State 6-3
With parents and U.S. Army enlistees being honored during the contest, the Central Michigan Division II club hockey team looked to get its third win of the season.
“Especially in this season we are going through right now the parents are super important,” said head coach Sean Boyle. “We’ve got parents from all over that take the trips with us and it's important to us and them.”
Plagued by penalties, the Chippewas fell to Lake Superior State with a final score of 6-3 on Saturday.
“Some of the penalties we take, we’re shooting ourselves in the foot,” said Boyle. “We have a lot of injuries, so our depth is already short as is, so when we’ve got guys constantly taking silly penalties, selfish penalties that hurts the team.”
The Chippewas fall to 2-13-1 on the season.
Junior captain Spencer Messina took the ice for the first time this season since being injured in the second game of the season.
“Having him (Spencer) play four or five shifts and just having him on the bench calms things down a little,” said Boyle. “He provided a level of skill that we’d been missing almost all year.”
Within the first five minutes, the Lakers took a quick 2-0 lead with goals from freshman forward Nicholas Anderson and junior forward Hayden Goldstein.
With less than five minutes left in the first period, the Chippewas went on the powerplay. Freshman forward Aidan Beckman fired a shot from the hash marks. Lakers goaltender Sean Piotrowciz went down as Beckman’s shot went up, finding the back of the net to cut the lead in half.
Unphased by the Chippewas goal, junior forward Justin Smith scored shorthanded to extend the lead to 3-1 going into the second period.
The Lakers would add two more goals in the second period, leaving the Chippewas off the board and extending the lead to 5-1.
A lucky shot from junior forward Connor Beemish bounced off the post and into the net to make the score 5-2 with 13 minutes left in the game. The Chippewas made it 5-3 after battling in front of the net, with a rebound goal from senior forward Lucas Czopek.
“Sometimes it just clicks in the players,” said Boyle. “There’s a lot of games we played this year that we click for 50 minutes and then it shuts off for 10 and that’s where we lose the game. Today I think the guys just said you know what it doesn’t matter. They focused on the little things like getting the puck out and getting the puck in. Getting a lot of shots on net and just controlling what we can. They played a very fast and physical game, and dominated the third period, which was good.”
LSSU junior forward Jason Cossette snuck one past Chippewas goaltender Jonah Heath to secure the 6-3 win.
The Chippewas are back at Martin Ice Arena on Sunday, Nov. 20 to face off against University of Michigan. Puck drop is set for 2:30 p.m.
“The mindset is good,” said Boyle. “The guys still trust have trust in each other, they believe in each other, and they just want to out and work for each other. We are going to have a couple of good practices this week and be ready for Michigan.”
