The BGSU hockey team came home from South Bend with a bitter taste in its mouth after the Falcons lost twice to No. 9 Notre Dame over the weekend.
BG was unable to capitalize on enough scoring chances while the Irish cashed in on theirs, resulting in a 5-2 decision on Friday and a 4-0 result on Saturday. The losses drop the Falcons’ record to 3-6-1 overall and 1-5-0 in CCHA play.
“I thought we did some good things, but Notre Dame is a very confident, veteran team right now and they’re flying,” said BG coach Scott Paluch. “You’ve got to score goals and play a real good game to beat them. We played well, but we just weren’t good enough to win.”
The Falcons went into the third period of Friday’s game tied with the Irish (8-1-1, 3-0-1) at two goals apiece. Three third period Irish goals scored in a span of 12 minutes proved to be the difference, however, as Notre Dame captured the first of four regular-season meetings between the teams this year.
BG was able to strike first at the 10:14 mark of the first period with defenseman Kevin Schmidt scoring his first goal of the season.
After two Irish goals put the game at 2-1, forward Tomas Petruska (4) tied the game at the 6:24 mark of the second period before Notre Dame ran away with the game in the third.
Todd McIlrath (3), Jonathan Matsumoto (8) and Derek Whitmore (3) recorded assists for BG. Goalie Eddie Neville (1-3-1) stopped 28 out of 33 Notre Dame shots on goal.
Notre Dame scored three goals on the power play while BG went 0-5 for the game. For the weekend, the Falcons were held scoreless on all 11 of their chances with an extra attacker.
“I thought we did a good job for two periods,” Paluch said. “We got ourselves in position to make the plays to win the game, but we didn’t do that and Notre Dame did. We did a lot of necessary things but it got away from us in the third.”
In Saturday’s action, BG was held scoreless for the second time this season as Notre Dame’s defense was able to limit any serious scoring threats by the Falcons. The shutout was Irish goaltender David Brown’s third career blanking of BG.
The Irish were able to score twice in the first period and once in each of the final two periods for the four-goal victory.
The Falcons outshot the Irish 28-26 on the night but failed to finish any chances in front of the net.
“Pucks just weren’t bouncing our way… we had some good opportunities, some shots on net, but rebounds were going the opposite way we were,” said BG team captain Michael Hodgson. “We had the chances, but just couldn’t bury them.”
The closest BG came to scoring was when Matsumoto appeared to cut the Notre Dame lead in half with a goal as time expired in the first period. The officials reviewed the goal and ruled after video replay that there was no goal.
Jimmy Spratt (2-3-0) had 22 saves in net for the Falcons.
This weekend BG hosts league-foe Ohio State in a pair of games at the Ice Arena.
