The Falcon hockey team swept their series against the Alaska Anchorage Seawolves, winning 2-1 on Friday night after taking Thursday night’s game 5-2.
“Any time you come to Alaska and win two games, it’s a good thing,” Falcons head coach Chris Bergeron said. “It’s not an easy trip for us, and we had a plan to come up here and play and give ourselves an opportunity to win two games and we did that.”
Friday’s game saw both teams go scoreless in the first period, but freshman forward Connor Ford scored for the Falcons just nine seconds into the second period. The game would remain at 1-0 advantage for much of the second, until Alaska Anchorage tied it with less than a minute to go in the period. In the third, despite scoring chances for both teams, neither team was able to take the lead until the 12:19 mark, when senior forward Tyler Spezia scored for the Falcons to retake the lead, which the team did not relinquish as they held on to take the 2-1 win.
“We had some good chances,” Bergeron said. “We had a couple of chances shorthanded that we weren’t able to capitalize on, unfortunately our power play wasn’t very good tonight, but sometimes you have to score four or five, tonight we had to score two.”
On Thursday, the first period again started scoreless, however just 54 seconds into the second period the Falcons got on the board as freshman forward Max Johnson scored to make it a 1-0 game. Midway through the second, however, Alaska Anchorage had a goal of their own at the 9:16 mark to tie the game back up, where the score remained even at one apiece going into the third period.
“In the first five or six minutes, I thought we were really good,” Bergeron said. “We had full control of the puck in their zone and obviously we didn’t get any goals, but I thought we started good. In the second, we just started turning pucks over and they’re a team that can hurt you if you turn pucks over and that’s what they did.”
In the third, the Falcons started off strong as Spezia scored just 1:49 in, however Alaska Anchorage tied the game back up just 32 seconds later. The game remained even until the 11:07 mark, with a goal from sophomore forward Lukas Craggs. The team was also able to get an insurance goal at 14:38 from junior forward Stephen Baylis, eventually forcing Alaska Anchorage to pull the goaltender for an extra attacker as time wound down. The Falcons took advantage with 57 seconds remaining as Craggs hit the empty net for his second goal of the game, sealing the Falcons’ 5-2 victory.
“It was a couple of really strong plays,” Bergeron said. “I thought our third period was okay, it was definitely better than our second period and once we established ourselves in competing and skating, Lukas made a great play and Johnson made a great play that Baylis capitalized on. It was just a matter of sticking with it and playing the game the way we’re capable of playing.”
The team will next play on Friday and Saturday nights on the road against the Alabama Huntsville Chargers.
