Once again a good balance of scoring and solid defense along with some good bounces allowed the Bowling Green hockey team to defeat Alaska-Fairbanks 6-1 on Saturday night. A win which moved the Falcons into a fourth place tie in the Central Collegiate Hockey Association with Northern Michigan and gave the team their second series sweep of the season.
Jordan Sigalet earned first star honors as he made 26 saves on 27 shots, holding the Nanooks scoreless through 59:49, before allowing a goal with only 11 seconds left.
Derek Whitmore and Rich Meloche both added two goals in the game as the Falcon youth continued to produce points.
It was a goal by Whitmore at the 12:25 mark of the second period to put BG up 2-0 that proved to be the game-winner. His shot from the right circle found the net over the left shoulder of Nanook goaltender Keith Bartusch with Steve Brudzewski and James Unger both picking up assists on the play.
“I don’t think the score was really indicative of how the game went,” head coach Scott Paluch said. “I thought we did a good job of being opportunistic on loose pucks and bounces, but I thought it was a lot more even played game and tighter game than the score indicated. It was clearly a case where we had some fortuitous bounces that went our direction and we were pretty good at putting pucks away when we had an opportunity. Siggy had to be strong and was very solid all the way through and it is clearly for our team a great four points on the weekend.”
Alex Foster gave BG an early 1-0 lead as the Falcons (10-7-3, 7-5-2 CCHA) scored first again for the second night in a row on the Nanooks (6-9-1; 5-8-1 CCHA). A good play by Chris Pedota on the left side boards got the puck to Jonathan Matsumoto, who found Foster on the right side of the net. Foster then stuck the shot into the upper right corner of the net for his fourth of the season at the 13:27 mark.
The Falcons out-shot the Nanooks 10-3 in the first period as Fairbanks had trouble getting shots on net.
BG would score three goals in the latter part of the second period then to take a commanding 4-0 lead going into the third.
Following Whitmore’s game-winning goal, Alex Rogosheske netted his second of the year from the left side of the net on a nice pass from Ryan Minnabarriet as they came in on a 2-on-1 break-away. Ben Geelan also recorded an assist on the play at 15:26.
Meloche would add the third goal of the period just over two minutes later on a rebound from Bryan Dobek. Brett Pilkington got the other assist on Meloche’s seventh goal of the season.
Sigalet continued to shine in net for the Falcons, making big save after big save, including one on a 1-on-1 break-away with the Nanooks’ Troy Newton.
“Sigalet out-played our goaltender,” Fairbanks head coach Tavis MacMillan said. “Not that Keith played bad, but the bottom line is Jordan Sigalet out-played our goaltender. He did it last night too and he’s done that against a lot of goalies in this league.”
Around the halfway mark of the final period, Meloche would add his second goal of the night on a power-play to give BG a 5-0 lead.
Whitmore would add another power-play goal just 38 seconds later to finish off the BG scoring. He is now tied for the team lead in goals with Matsumoto with nine on the year.
As time wound down in the game, the Nanooks started putting more and more pressure on Sigalet as they finally got on the board with just 11 seconds remaining.
Ryan McLeod came in on a break-away from the left side and beat Sigalet under his arm to bring it to 6-1.
“He made a nice shot on me,” Sigalet said about the goal. “I could care less as long as we got the win. It’s nice to get a shut-out, but it’s nothing to get down about. Four points this weekend is huge and now we get two weeks off to get better and get ready for Northern [Michigan].”
The Falcons’ power-play went 2-for-7 on the night, while Fairbanks went 0-for-8.
“The previous night we played more of a passive, like in the box type of penalty kill,” Foster said about the good penalty killing. “Tonight we switched it up to give them a different look. We were a little more aggressive, so I don’t think they had as much time as they thought they’d have to setup and get shots away.”
“What I thought was the most impressive thing about BG’s penalty kill tonight was the fact they had kids laying down head-first blocking shots and diving to block shots,” MacMillan said about the BG penalty kill. “Bowling Green is the hardest working team we’ve played against this year. Those guys work so hard, they all looked alike, they looked like a bunch of little robots flying around.”
BG won’t be in action this weekend as they have a bye week, but will return to action the next weekend when they head to Northern Michigan for a key CCHA series.
