After playing their best hockey of the season a week ago, the Falcon hockey team came back this weekend with their worst effort of the young season.
Last week the Falcons scored 11 goals and were 15-of-16 on the penalty-kill as Jimmy Spratt only allowed three goals each night to help BG earn a sweep over Nebraska-Omaha 7-3, 4-3.
This week the Falcons could only find the net six times and were 13-of-18 on the penalty-kill while allowing 13 goals as Notre Dame earned a 4-2 win on Friday night in South Bend, Ind. finishing off a sweep off a sweep of the Falcons. The Irish won 9-4 the previous night.
Matt Amado scored two goals on the night for the Irish including the game-winner at the 2:05 mark of the second period. His shot from the top of the left-circle beat BG goaltender Jon Horrell after racing down the left side of the ice to give ND a 3-0 lead.
It was a lead the Irish had built after Amado’s first goal just 20 seconds into the game and a goal by Josh Sciba at the 15:07 mark of the first period on the power-play. Notre Dame used the momentum they had built up the previous night at the end of the game and got solid goaltending from David Brown to jump all over the frustrated Falcons.
Brown finished the night with 36 saves on 38 shots as he continued his career-success against the Falcons. Horrell finished with 18 saves on 22 shots
“I thought David [Brown] played real well tonight as did our special teams,” ND coach Jeff Jackson said. “David played tonight the way I was told he played his freshman year and we need that if we are going to be successful.”
In his freshman season, Brown recorded two shutout wins over the Falcons as he was one of the Central Collegiate Hockey Association top goaltenders. Last season was a struggle for the netminder and after struggling through the early part of the current season this weekend seemed to be as good as any for the Falcons to really figure him out.
However, despite the 25 shots on net in the first two periods, the Falcons found themselves down 3-0 in the third before Mike Falk was finally able to get the Falcons on the scoreboard just 33 seconds in. Alex Foster was able to fire a shot on net that came out to Falk on the right where he stuffed in the rebound for his team-high seventh goal of the season to make it 3-1.
Falk then got his third goal of the weekend on the Falcons lone power-play goal of the night at 12:32 to cut the lead to one. BG went 1-9 with the extra-attacker for the game as they tried to mount a comeback and salvage a point from the weekend. ND finished 1-8.
Any hopes of that comeback ended though about five minutes later as Tim Wallace found the net for the Irish to make it 4-2 with just 2:35 left.
“We bent, but didn’t break tonight,” Jackson said. “Bowling Green had better chances than us and we won the battles for loose pucks. We got excellent penalty-killing and good goaltending tonight.”
Goaltending and penalty-killing was something that hurt BG the night before as the Falcons allowed nine goals with four coming on the Irish power-play.
After Derek Whitmore received a five-minute game misconduct at 14:20 of the first period for checking from behind with BG leading 1-0 the Irish took advantage of the situation and netted two goals as they took the lead and wouldn’t look back. Sciba and Wallace once again got credit the goals as the Irish lead 2-1 out-shooting the Falcons 11-10 in the period.
“One thing we are not a big fan of as a coaching staff is the undisciplined penalties,” BG assistant coach Jamie Dumont said. “That bit us a little bit tonight and we won’t stand for it. We got to play more disciplined and keep the game five-on-five.”
Sciba netted his second goal of an eventual hat-trick again on the power-play at 8:57 of the second to give the Irish a 3-1 lead that Amado added on to just 24 seconds later.
ND finished the night 4-10 on the power-play.
BG tried climbing back in it as Jonathan Matsumoto netted his sixth goal of the season at 11:50 of the second on the BG power-play. It was the first of two power-play goals for the Falcons on the night as they finished 2-7.
Falk added the other extra-attacker goal for BG at 10:13 of the third period, but by that time the damage had already been done.
The Falcons continued struggles on defense lead to many odd-man rushes and breakaways on the night as ND took advantage of Spratt, the freshman goaltender who was making only his fifth start of his career.
ND scored five goals in the final period as the flustered Spratt was defenseless against the oncoming rushes. He finished with only 19 saves on 28 shots for the night. Jordan Pearce finished with 29 saves on 33 shots for the Irish.
Face-offs were also be a big problem for the Falcons on the night as ND won the face-offs 65-31 for the game.
“That’s a two-to-one ratio,” Dumont said. “Those are restarts and puck positions that we need to win.”
The Falcons will look to get back in the win column when they host Northern Michigan for a two-game CCHA series starting Friday.
