COLLEGE HOCKEY
Bowling Green not satisfied with 1-1 tie against Alaska
Falcons unbeaten in weekend series
1/12/2014
BOWLING GREEN — The Bowling Green State University hockey team collected three out of a possible four points in its Western Collegiate Hockey Association series with Alaska.
The Falcons’ 1-1 overtime tie Saturday at the BG Ice Arena wasn’t a “feel-good” moment.
“Our guys are upset — and I don’t mean they feel sorry for themselves,” BG coach Chris Bergeron said. “They feel they left something out there — and that’s a good thing.
“That means a tie is not good enough for us. Three points against a good team, well, we’ll take it. But when we came in [to the lockerroom after Saturday’s game], more guys than not were disappointed with the tie.”
Bergeron felt his team played ‘OK’ Saturday but was dissatisfied with the number of scoring chances the Falcons (12-9-5 overall, 9-6-3 WCHA) produced despite taking 27 shots on goal.
“I don’t think we can create three or four goals with the number of chances we had,” he said. “First of all, I don’t think we created enough opportunities for them to take penalties, and that has everything to do with our effort and nothing to do with the referees.
“In the second period, we killed penalties the whole period, so it was difficult to create anything. And in the third we had a chance here, a chance there, but they weren’t consistent.”
Alaska is 8-10-4 (5-9-2) this season.
The Falcons’ only goal game less then two minutes into the game — and came thanks to a fluky bounce.
The puck was dumped into Alaska’s defensive zone, and Nanooks goalie John Keeney went behind his net to intercept it.
The puck instead bounced off one of the on-ice officials straight to BG’s Mark Cooper, who rifled it into the empty net just 1:52 into the game.
The score remained 1-0 until midway through the third period, when Alaska’s Marcus Basara beat Falcons netminder Tommy Burke at 7:44 of the period after BG lost a battle for the puck near the boards just inside its blueline.
The goal was the first allowed by Burke since the 16:10 mark of the second period of Bowling Green’s second game at Alabama-Huntsville, marking 131:34 between goals.
“Those were polar opposites,” Burke said when asked to compare his play over the weekend. “[Friday] night was hard to keep my head in [the game] because they only had six or seven chances the whole night, and some of them didn’t even hit the net.
“[Saturday] they had more of an emphasis on shooting pucks because pucks on the wall [Friday] resulted in them trying to make plays, and pucks on the wall [Saturday] resulted on them trying to get shots.”
NOTE: With the tie BG has collected at least one point in each of its last six WCHA games. ... The Falcons will have next week off, with their next home series against Lake Superior State on Feb. 24-25.
Contact John Wagner at: jwagner@theblade.com, 419-724-6481 or on Twitter @jwagnerblade.