We traveled out to Wisconsin this past weekend and unfortunately lost both games against #1 Steven’s Point 4-1 and #3 Eau Claire 4-2. We played well in both games and gave up an empty net goal in both games which made the scores look a bit inflated. The guys played hard and we had our chances in both games to take the win. I believe that if we earn the chance to play either of these teams again in the NCAA tournament that we will be better prepared.
On Friday Night we lost 4-2 to Eau Claire, but we were tied with about nine minutes left in the game. The official decided to not kick out a wing from the draw which put us in a vulnerable situation and they took advantage to take the lead 3-2. We had some great chances to come back in this game, but unfortunately fell short.
On Saturday night we traveled to Steven’s Point to take on the #1 ranked team in the country, Steven’s Point, and played them to a real tough game. I thought we played great defensively in this game only giving up 20 shots on net. This was the fewest shots on net that they have had all season, which is something to hang our hats on. We got the loss, but we learned a lot of what it would take to win in the future against this very competitive team.
These were our final two non-conference games of the season and we are now into the home stretch of MIAC games. We travel to Concordia-Moorhead this weekend for two games. We play at 7pm on Friday, January 18th and 2pm on Saturday, January 19th. This is going to be a huge series for us seeing that Concordia is having a great season and is currently in second place in the MIAC standings with a record of 6-1-1. We have a chance to leap frog them in the standings if we are able to get a couple wins, but on the opposite side of that, they can really separate themselves if we are not able to accomplish our goals for the weekend.
Concordia has the top scoring line in the league this year with Tyler Bossert (31), Mario Bianchi (23), and Aaron Herdt (21) all with over 20 points on the season. One goal this weekend is to shut down these three players as they account for 45% of their entire teams point totals. If we can shut them down, I feel that we have a great chance of winning the weekend.
We are really looking forward to this weekend and all the BIG MIAC games down the stretch. We hope to see you at a game soon and we are ready to chase down a championship. I hope you will take some time to watch the web stream of the game or listen to it live: Here is the link to the media sources: https://gojohnnies.com/schedule.aspx?path=mhockey
Go Johnnies!
