BGSU hockey pulled away from Northern Michigan 6-2 on Saturday to earn the 1000th win in program history.
The win also moved the Falcons to 14-2 overall on the season. The sweep, while against a WCHA opponent, was played as a non-conference series and does not count toward the WCHA standings.
The Falcons repeated their success from the previous night, with 11 different players netting points in the historic win over the Wildcats.
In the first period, the Falcons started off slow, letting the Wildcats get up four shots to none from the Falcons. BGSU sophomore goalkeeper Zack Rose looked strong in net and made early saves despite the allowed shots.
After this the Falcons began to find their groove as Cameron Wright gave their offense a kickstart with a stellar goal. It came after a series of shots stopped by Northern Michigan goalkeeper John Hawthorne, but a rebound was recovered and passed by the Falcon’s Carson Daly straight to Wright, who took a wide-open slapshot to score from the left circle.
Within minutes of that score, Bowling Green netted another, this time from Brandon Kruse. The Golden Knights prospect made a great move in the crease to get the puck just around the left skate of Hawthorne, putting the Falcons up 2-0.
As the period wore on, the physical play from both teams began to pick up. Despite some roughness, both teams were disciplined in how they went about it. For the Falcons’ part, they’ve been aware of some of their recent penalty trouble, and head coach Ty Eigner seemed pleased with the change in pace.
“We understand that guys, emotions can sometimes get the better of them,” he said. “But we really tried to stress to them to maintain their discipline, and we did a lot better tonight.”
As they pushed to get on the scoreboard, the Wildcats’ Jett Jungels finally broke through Rose, scoring one from up close to put the game at 2-1.
With 17 seconds remaining in the first period, an unusual timeout was called by Eigner. After the game, Eigner addressed the odd timing of the call.
“We had just taken an icing and we had some tired guys out there,” he said. “We thought that this could be a really crucial moment in the game. They’ve got a very good faceoff team, we felt like it was important that we got fresh guys out there.”
Northern Michigan came out of the gates flying in the second period with several quick shots. Rose held strong as the Falcons’ defense found its feet, even at one point making consecutive saves on a shot and its rebound.
Just as the period was picking up, the game’s first penalty was called on BGSU’s Carson Musser.
Although the Wildcats were held at bay with the man advantage, the penalty began to give them some much needed momentum, as they began to play fast and hard while the ice was still fresh.
Putting a stop to that momentum, though, was a penalty to the Wildcat’s own Michael Van Unen for a rough cross-check.
Northern Michigan seemed as though they would hold off the Falcons’ advantage, but with seven seconds to go, Alex Barber netted a goal to put the Falcons up 3-1.
Shortly after, Bowling Green’s Evan Dougherty delivered a massive hit up against the boards, which earned him an elbowing penalty and resulted in the Wildcats getting another power play.
Knowing that this would be a crucial moment for them, the Wildcats won the faceoff and made some quick passes to scatter Bowling Green’s defense. The puck eventually ended up in the circle of Vincent De Mey, who drove it home within seconds to bring Northern Michigan within one.
Just minutes later, the Falcons were enjoying an extended zone entry, having stayed in the Wildcats’ end for over a minute. Having faced multiple shots from that single shift, Hawthorne found himself overwhelmed by the pressure, leading to Taylor Schneider finding the open net and making the lead a comfortable 4-2 for Bowling Green.
The third period began with some rather unfortunate drama, as there were multiple incidents of what appeared to be player injuries early on.
Max Johnson took a rough hit to the head next to the Wildcats’ bench. He was down on the ice for a short period while he was being evaluated by team trainers. Johnson re-joined the Falcons’ bench, continued to play the game and no penalty was served to Northern Michigan. Coach Eigner addressed Johnson’s resilience.
“It was good to see him be able to get up from that hit and be able to come back and play,” he said.
The Falcons’ Sam Craggs was also hurt, after being part of an awkward three-person collision on open ice. According to Eigner, Craggs was cut on his leg by a skate and should recover quickly.
In addition to these, Gavin Gould had left the ice earlier in the game as well after apparently injuring his wrist.
With these two players sidelined for the remainder of the third, the Falcons had to get creative with their offensive lines, such as running Ford, Kruse, and Wright as their top power play unit.
Speaking of the power play, it did end up successfully connecting once again via Max Johnson, who seemed unphased by his rough fall.
BGSU’s Will Cullen padded out the lead with a stellar goal, decking two defenders and Hawthorne to tuck home the final goal in the 6-2 victory for Bowling Green.
With this win, the BGSU Falcons’ hockey program has hit an impressive milestone of 1000 wins all-time. This comes at a time when the Falcons are drawing eyes across the nation, being ranked the No. 8 college program in the most recent USCHO rankings.
The significance of this accomplishment was not lost on Coach Eigner, saying that they’ve been anticipating the opportunity.
“It’s something we talked about on Friday, and we told them that we’re at 998, and if we want to get 1000 in this building then we have to win on Friday first, then we can talk about winning on Saturday,” he said. “It’s a pretty unique deal and it’s pretty special to everybody in that room.”
Next up for the Falcons will be an away series against Bemidji State on Thursday and Friday of this week. This series will also only be counted toward the team’s overall records on the season.
