The 1996-97 season was the last season a Bowling Green hockey team has started this well. Now BG will look to continue their early season success against the Warriors of Wayne State.
Coming off a split with Nebraska-Omaha (2-4, 6-4), the Falcons currently sit at 5-2-1 overall with a Central Collegiate Hockey Association record of 3-2-1. It’s their best start since the 96-97 season when the team started 6-0.
As a result, they broke into the “USA Today”/ “USA Hockey Magazine” poll at 20 and remain in the U.S. College Hockey Online/ CSTV poll at 21.
Tonight they will travel to the Compuware Arena in Plymouth, Mich., to take on Wayne State from College Hockey America (CHA) to start a non- conference home-and-home series that will conclude at the BG Ice Arena on Saturday.
“They were in the national tournament two years ago and I think they’re a very good team right now,” head coach Scott Paluch said. “They’re 6-3-1 right now, but they have wins over Clarkson, Merrimack and Providence. Last year they were a lot of young players, now this year they’re closer to where they were two years ago when they almost knocked off Colorado College in the first round of the national tournament. Bill Wilkinson has done a great job with that team and they’re a very tough opponent right now.”
The Warriors come into the weekend after getting a win and tie against Robert Morris in a CCHA series.
They are led in scoring by two freshmen forwards, Stavros Paskaris and Tylor Michel. Paskaris has 10 points on five goals and five assists. Michel also has 10 points as he has scored three goals while assisting on seven others.
Sophomores Jason Baclig and Nate Higgins also return after leading the team in scoring a year ago. Baclig currently has eight points on a goal and seven assists while Higgins has four points scoring a goal with three assists. “Those are two players to watch,” Paluch said. “They’re both very skilled players, they know to produce at a level consistently now and they’re involved every single night, but they have a lot of good players on that team.”
In net, the Warriors bring two solid goaltenders into the series with Matt Kelly and Will Hooper. Kelly currently has a goal against average of 2.21 and save percentage of .920.
Hooper, like BG goaltender Jon Horrell, was involved with the University of Findlay’s hockey program until it cut its team after last season. He brings in a goal against average of 2.77 with a .896 save percentage.
For BG, freshman Jonathan Matsumoto comes into the weekend having earned his second CCHA Rookie of the Week honors this season.
He had three goals and an assist on the weekend at Omaha, including two goals with an assist in Saturday’s 6-4 win. He currently has six goals on the year and of the six, five of them have been scored on the power-play. His .75 goals- per-game average makes him 16th nationally.
“I didn’t really know what to expect coming in here,” Matsumoto said. “The first couple of weekends sort of helped out the confidence a lot and I’m just trying to build on that.”
“Matsy’s [Matsumoto] skill and understanding in the offensive zone has certainly been apparent early in the year,” Paluch said. “We kind of knew that would be the case and he’s working hard and good things are happening.”
Jordan Sigalet had a rough weekend in Omaha as he gave up eight goals on 64 shots; However, he still owns a 2.52 goals against average and a save percentage of .928.
The Falcon power play currently is ranked sixth in the country according to USCHO.com as they have capitalized on 13 of their 55 power plays for a percentage of 23.6. This weekend they were 6-13 with the extra-man advantage, including 5-8 on Saturday.
Their penalty-kill is ranked 19th in the country according to the site as well, as they’ve killed 85.2 percent of all opposing power plays.
Of the seven suspended players, six played at Omaha and four came away with points. Don Morrison and Brett Pilkington were the top two contributors of the returning players. Morrison had a goal and three assists while Pilkington also scored a goal while assisting another.
Jon Sitko missed this past weekend’s series due to an ankle contusion and is doubtful for these two games.
The Falcons and Warriors will drop the puck tonight at 7:05 and will face-off at 5:05 p.m. on Saturday at the BG Ice Arena.
