First period penalties haunt Bronco hockey, lose 4-3 to Ferris State

By Mark Rudi
Sports Editor

BIG RAPIDS – Coming into Saturday night, the Western Michigan University hockey team was one of the least penaltized teams in the Central Collegiate Hockey Association.

However, three penalties in the first period, which turned into three power play goals for No. 12 Ferris State University, contributed to the Broncos’ 4-3 loss to the Bulldogs in Big Rapids.

Western Michigan (6-9-3, 2-9-3-1 CCHA) would build a comback to cut the FSU lead to one, but Ferris’ three first period goals were too much to come back from.

“The 3-0 lead after the first period of play agianst the No. 12 team the country. Again, we showed that a resiliency  in that battle to make it a one goal hockey game going into that third period,” WMU head coach Jim Culhane said. “You make it difficult on yourself by giving up three goals in the first period.”

Bulldog junior right wing Todd Pococke scored the first two goals for Ferris State, which were his third and fourth of the season, and junior defenseman Zach Redmond scored the third.

Coming into Saturday night, Ferris State was second in the CCHA in the power play department, converting 21.9 percent of the time with the man advantage.

The Brown and Gold would get on the board with two goals from sophomore right wing J.J. Crew, the first which was on the power play, in the second period. The Broncos were running their normal offense when freshman right wing Ben Miller dug the puck out of the corner to find Crew right in front of FSU goalie Taylor Nelson.

“We run like a right start overload and you usually go down into the corner and the guy in the corner can either roll up with it or can look for me for an option,” Crew said.  ”He [Miller] thought that I was open so he fed to me and I just put the best stick I could on it and it went through and hit the post and went in.”

“Good power play goal there,” Culhane said. “It’s been overdue for us, but it’s great to see the team score on the PP.”

The power play goals was WMU’s first goal with the man advantage since the Ohio State University game on Nov. 14.

Crew would cut the FSU lead to one when he scored off a rebound at 18:30 in the second period. That goal was assisted by Dane Walters and Max Campbell and the Broncos went into the third period with the momentum and found themselves back in the game.

However, Ferris State (13-3-2, 8-2-2-2 CCHA) would get a goal from Derek Graham at 5:42 in the third period. It looked like Graham didn’t mean to take a shot and the puck took a weird bounce and went right past WMU goalie Riley Gill.

“I had the paddle out to try and block the pass,” Gill said. “But it the butt end of my stick and went through the five-hole. Tough one right there. Those things you got to battle through and hopefully it won’t happen again.”

WMU pulled Gill with 1:05 left to get the extra man, but were whistled for a high stick call, which forced the puck to be dropped in its one zone. The Broncos spent much of the final minute in their own zone and could muster one shot, which was with just a second left.

“More of a control chaos situation. Extreme desperation on both parts,” Culhane said. “Trying to make a play. Unfortunately, it’s whistled down for the faceoff to come in our own zone.”

In the end, Western Michigan racked up nine penalties for 26 minutes, which is was above its average of 11.1 penalty minutes per game. The Broncos were 10th in the conference coming into Saturday night in that department and Ferris State outshot WMU 45-29. The Broncos will have a few weeks off for finals and the Christmas holiday before returning to Kalamazoo the final week of December and facing No. 4 Bemidji State University on Jan. 2 at Lawson Ice Arena.

“We got to cut down on the number of shots we’re giving up,” Gill said on what needs to change after break. “I think we’re giving up 35 shots or more in the past five or six games. Cut down on shots on goal and generate more shots. We seemed to get outshot every game and it be nice be on the other end once in a while.”

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Posted by heraldstaff on Dec 12 2009. Filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

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