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Huskies easily sweep Bemidji State
Men win 4-2 Friday and 11-3 Saturday
With the way the SCSU men's hockey team was forced to open the 2001-02 season, a tough road trip out east, their only series with North Dakota, four games against Colorado College, a trip to Anchorage and a home-and-home with Minnesota, the Huskies had to be looking forward to this weekend's series with Bemidji State just so they could have a break.
SCSU took advantage of that break, beating BSU 4-2 Friday in Bemidji before returning home to the National Hockey Center on Saturday to manhandle the Beavers 11-3 in a cakewalk.
The Beavers entered the weekend with only one win over a WCHA school in their short history as a Division I program and were struggling at times to even compete with the some of the top teams in the country.
Then they had their opportunity to host the nations top-ranked team Friday night at a jam-packed John Glas Fieldhouse in arguably their biggest home game ever.
BSU took that opportunity and ran with it, providing the 2,067 fans in attendance with a thrilling, up and down hockey game.
The Huskies got on the board twice in the final five minutes of the opening frame to jump out to a 2-0 lead. Mark Hartigan, who would figure into all four of the Huskies goals, opened the scoring with a wrister that beat BSU goaltender Grady Hunt high. On the play, Matt Gens took a shot from the point that hit traffic in front of Hunt and headed towards the sky. Hartigan grabbed the puck out of the air, dropped it to the ice, spun around and deposited the puck into the net.
Just over three minutes later, Hartigan slid a pass to Bemidji native Joe Motzko who redirected the puck past Hunt.
Neither team was able to score in the second period but when Riley Riddell found himself camped in front of Husky netminder Dean Weasler at the 6:41 mark of the third, we had ourselves a hockey game.
Nate DiCasmirro quieted the crowd about four minutes later when Hartigan hit his line mate with a pass as he was coming out of the penalty box to send him in all alone on Hunt. DiCasmirro beat Hunt with a wrist shot over his blocker to give the Huskies a 3-1 lead.
After an apparent goal by Motzko was ruled to have not gone in, Riddell struck again. This time he picked up the puck behind the Husky net, circled around front and tucked home the shot before Weasler could get over to make the play to make the score 3-2.
That would be as close as the Beaver would get though, as Hartigan scored again on the power play with just 1:09 to play in regulation as the Huskies escaped with a 4-2 win.
"It was a pretty good game," said SCSU head coach Craig Dahl. "We had some great chances in the first ten minutes of the second period but we just couldn't score and they were able to get back in it."
The Huskies relied heavily on the first line of Hartigan, DiCasmirro and Matt Hendricks and the trio came through again. Dahl would like to see some more productivity out of his other lines but is comfortable with letting the top line take care of business.
"We would like to get some more scoring out of some of the other lines, there is no question about it," he said. "But North Dakota has proved that you can get scoring from one line and win."
Some of the Huskies likened the atmosphere in the John Glas to that of what the Municipal Athletic Complex was like when SCSU was taking its first steps as a Division I program.
"It was a good atmosphere, there fans were great," said Hartigan. "They are paying their dues and playing hard. They have a good coach, they will be fine."
Saturday night in St. Cloud, the Huskies raised the stakes and those dues that Hartigan referred to were a little harder to come by.
The first twenty minutes was relatively close but SCSU outscored the Beavers 8-1 over the final two periods as they cruised to an 11-3 win as they improved to 15-2-1 on the year.
Jon Cullen had a trick. Ryan Malone had two goals and two assists. Gens and Mike Walsh each added a pair of goals and Hartigan picked up three more assists to give him seven points on the weekend.
The only bad thing to come out of the pouncing was an injury to sophomore defensemen Ryan LaMere. The injury happened just before BSU scored their second goal. LaMere was in the neutral zone finishing off a check while the Beavers were on the power play. While he was struggling to get to the bench, the Beavers took advantage of the two-man advantage as Bryce Methven one-timed home a shot past Husky netminder Jake Moreland.
LaMere said that he dislocated his shoulder and will be out at least three weeks.
"I have never felt pain like that," said LaMere, who dislocated the same shoulder last year. "It hurt so bad that when I got to bench, I just passed out."
Moreland, who let in a real soft goal on a wrap around by Travis Barnes, was pulled after the first period and replaced by Weasler, who was promptly handed a three-goal cushion.
"I just decided to make a goaltending change," said Dahl. "That's all."
One real big plus for the Huskies in their 11-goal outburst was that the top line accounted for only one of those goals. Dahl had been looking for production from some of the other lines and got it. The second line of Cullen, Motzko and Malone was on the ice for five goals.
"Our line hadn't had an even strength goal in a long time," said Malone, who said he would be fined in the team's kangaroo court� for his celebration following his second goal. "Last night we were getting frustrated. We were getting a lot of chances down low and then finally tonight we got some bounces and everything worked out."
The Huskies will play their last series of 2001 next weekend at the National Hockey Center against Minnesota State University, Mankato. The Huskies swept the Mavericks in Mankato back in October.
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