This past weekend we played our first regular-season games of the 2018-19 season. Even though we played two Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (MIAC) teams, the games were considered non-conference as part of the MIAC Showcase and took place in Blaine.
On Friday, we played conference-rival St. Thomas. It was a good game, but we lost 3-2 in the end. I do believe we played a pretty good game even though we lost. We out-shot St. Thomas 35-21 in the game and I felt we had control for most of the contest. With that said, we did have a few big breakdowns that ended up costing us in the end. We got goals from Junior forward Kyle Wagner and senior forward Joe Chitwood.
On Sunday, we played Bethel, which is in a bit of a re-building phase after hiring a new coach this past summer. We were able to get the win 6-1 even though we gave up the first goal of the game and trailed for a short time. In the end, we scored six unanswered goals and put another 35 shots on net. We had 5 different scorers and junior forward Brady Heppner was the only player with two goals.
Overall, I was happy with the weekend and I feel that our team is making the right steps to becoming a top-notch team. One thing I was happy with was our special-teams play. We went 8-for-8 on the penalty kill and 3-for-7 on the power play.
Looking forward to this weekend, we play two Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WIAC) opponents in UW-River Falls and UW-Stout. Both teams will be tough opponents. The WIAC seems to be a tough league every year. With that said, this weekend last year really gave us a boost into the season when we went on the road and beat UW-River Falls 6-2 and UW-Stout 4-1. Both teams are going to be looking for some revenge in our building this weekend, but I am confident that if we play like we can that we will get another couple wins.
Thanks for your support and I hope that you can make it out to some games this season. I have attached a link below to our 2018-19 schedule.
https://gojohnnies.com/schedule.aspx?path=mhockey
Go Johnnies!
