Northern Michigan sweeps Broncos over weekend

By Adam Bouton

(Chyn Wey Lee / Western Herald) Bronco forward Kyle O’Kane waves to WMU fans as he celebrates his first goal of the season with his teammates at Saturday night’s 4-3 loss to Northern Michigan.

Western Herald

Bronco sophomore goaltender Matthew Federico slammed his glove on the boards as the buzzer rang ending Friday night’s 6-5 loss to Northern Michigan University.

It summed up a frustrating weekend for the Western Michigan University hockey squad against one of its Central Collegiate Hockey Association rivals.

Western Michigan (7-15-6, 4-11-5-1 CCHA) dropped two nail biters to the Wildcats (9-13-4, 6-10-4-3 CCHA), following up Friday’s narrow loss with another heartbreaking 4-3 defeat Saturday.  Both games were at Lawson Ice Arena in Kalamazoo and the sweep by NMU denied Western Michigan its first CCHA win at home.

“It’s always frustrating when you get two losses at home against a team that is extremely beatable,” Bronco senior left wing Sean Weaver said.  “Bottom line is penalties killed us.”

“I think some of the puck-luck that we had last weekend at Ohio State didn’t go our way this weekend,” Bronco head coach Jim Culhane added following Saturday’s defeat.

Penalties were an issue all weekend for the Broncos, as the squad gave Northern Michigan 16 chances with the man-advantage.  The Wildcats were able to convert on five of the opportunities over the weekend, including three Friday night.

“Last weekend we didn’t take too many penalties at all and we had success on the road in Ohio [against Ohio State],” Weaver said.  “Comebacks are a great thing, obviously, but we’re still falling one goal short which is pretty unfortunate.”

On Friday, WMU dug itself into an early 3-1 hole after just one period of play.  Northern Michigan scored the last two goals in the period on the power play.

Down 3-1, Western Michigan put together a comeback early.  Bronco freshman Kyle O’Kane went in on NMU junior goaltender Brian Stewart and flicked a backhander over the goalie’s shoulder.

NMU didn’t let the goal by O’Kane faze them, as they scored two more goals in the second period to open up a 5-2 lead.  The fourth goal by the Wildcats was a hard-luck goal.  Northern Michigan’s Mike Maltese threw a puck on net and through a screen.  Bronco junior goalie Riley Gill didn’t see the shot and after it hit the post, it went off Gill and bounced into the back of the net.

The Wildcats added a goal in the third to take a commanding 6-2 lead with less than 17 minutes to go.
Western Michigan never gave up, however.

Chris Frank knocked in a rebound goal and Cam Watson tallied his fourth and fifth goals of the season to close the gap to within one, 6-5.  Watson’s last goal came with just 1:01 remaining in the contest and after the Broncos pulled the goaltender to receive an extra attacker.

The Broncos furiously tried once more to knot the game up with under a minute left and its goalie still on the bench.  Watson had the best opportunity, but sailed a shot wide left of the net.  WMU ran out of time, although they probably could have tied the game up if there was more time on the clock.

With a sour taste in their mouths, WMU eagerly returned to the ice on Saturday looking for redemption.  What it got instead, was an equally frustrating loss.

O’Kane was back at it again, scoring just 1:11 into the game after a puck dumped into the zone by senior Chris Frank bounced off the boards and in front of the crease.  O’Kane snuck the puck past Stewart to give WMU an early 1-0 lead.

It looked like the score would stay 1-0 going into the first intermission. However, freshman defenseman Ben Lindemulder notched his first collegiate goal with only 44 seconds left in the first period for the Wildcats.

Late in the second period, Weaver tallied his third goal of the season as he deflected a Tyler Ludwig shot past NMU’s Stewart.  The goal came during a four-on-four situation and gave the Brown and Gold a 2-1 lead.

NMU’s Phil Fox then stole the show, scoring two goals within the final two minutes of the second period to give his team a 3-2 lead.  Both goals came on the power play and the last was especially hurtful because it came with less than a second remaining in the period.  Cam Watson took a minor penalty for the Broncos with just 27 seconds remaining in the period that helped the Wildcats score the final second period goal.

Northern Michigan came out in the third period and padded its lead when Justin Florek converted his fifth goal of the year.  Sophomore goaltender Jerry Kuhn made the initial stop, but Florek was there for the rebound.

Power play stalwart Max Campbell scored his second power play goal in as many nights with just under seven minutes remaining, but that ended the Broncos scoring as they lost another heartbreaker, 4-3.
Campbell was visually downtrodden after the contest Saturday, and it was easy to see why after a weekend of close calls.

“When you don’t get any points out of the weekend, there’s nothing really good that can come out of it,” Campbell said.  “I’m just bummed out.”

Campbell hopes that the experience weekend and the near comeback both nights will only lead to future success in these final four regular season weekends.

“We need to be a never-let-up team and give it all we got every night,” he said.  “We got to come with everything every night.”

Culhane knows that in a weekend of disappointments, scoring eight goals in two games is one encouraging sign.

“Positive from the weekend is scoring eight goals,” he said. “Guys battled real hard.”

Weaver knows that the season is not over yet and that the team needs to stay positive, even with two losses at home.

“We just got to keep our head up, work hard in practice and on any given night, a team can win,” Weaver said.

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Posted by HeraldAdmin on Feb 1 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

Cody Kimball
Web Manager: I'm a Communication Student at WMU, a SCUBA Diver, Boater, Ordained Minister, Notary Public, Web Designer, Film Maker, DJ, and of course a Journalist. Born and raised in Port Huron, MI and a graduate of SC4. http://www.codykimball.com