Jonathan Matsumoto had three goals and an assist on the weekend, as the Falcons split their two game series at Nebraska-Omaha.
After falling 4-2 on Friday night, the Falcons bounced back on Saturday night to pick up two big Central Collegiate Hockey Association points with a 6-4 win.
“It was a weekend where we rebounded pretty well from Friday night,” head coach Scott Paluch said. “On Friday night, we did some good things, we were moving pretty well, but just weren’t doing things with the energy and pace needed to be successful on the road. I thought we did that on Saturday. We bounced back well, we moved our feet, we created a lot of contact and our power-play was as strong as it’s been in a long time.”
The BG power-play went 6-13 in the two games and was 5-8 in the win on Saturday.
“We’ve been working really hard on the special teams in practice each day,” defenseman Michael Hodgson said. “We were getting some good bounces and that helped, but practice helps as well.”
“Pretty much all the bounces were just going our way,” Matsumoto said. “I think the past couple of weeks we’ve had bounces go against us and I guess this weekend we just hit the jackpot.”
Jordan Sigalet stopped 56 of 64 shots on the weekend, including 25 of 29 in Saturday’s win.
On Friday night, the Mavericks used two power-play goals in the first period by David Phillips and Alex Nikiforuk to grad an early 2-0 advantage, which they wouldn’t look back from.
Matsumoto countered with a power-play goal right before the end of the first, but it wasn’t enough as the Mavericks used two unanswered goals by Bryan Marshall and Nikiforuk again to pick up a 4-2 win.
Steve Brudzewski picked up his first goal of the season in the third, as Ryan Minnabarriet assisted on both BG goals. Don Morrison and Alex Rogosheske also picked up assists on the night.
The Falcons would bounce back on Saturday night as they used four straight power-play goals in the second and third periods to turn a 2-1 deficit into a 5-2 lead.
Just six minutes into the game, Matsumoto picked up his second power-play goal of the weekend and fifth goal of the season to give BG a 1-0 lead. Brett Pilkington and Morrison picked up assists on the goal.
Following Maverick goals by Phillips and Dan Knapp to finish out the first, the Falcons would strike with four straight power-play goals, as they scored on all of their first five power-plays.
Scoring the first three power-play goals was: Morrison, James Unger and Pilkington. Jonathan Sigalet picked up two assists on the power-plays, while Unger and Matsumoto also picked up assists.
Matsumoto picked up the final power-play goal then with just under 10 minutes left in the game to give BG a 5-2 lead. It was his third power-play goal of the weekend and sixth goal on the year. Unger picked up his second assist of the game and Sigalet his third on the game-winner by Matsumoto at 10:37 of the third period.
After the Mavericks added a power-play by Bill Thomas, Hodgson recorded his first collegiate goal with 4:04 left in the game to make it 6-3 Falcons. Unger picked up his third assist of the game and Jon Erickson picked up an assist as well.
“It was good to finally break that goal less streak and get one in there,” Hodgson said. “Hopefully they’ll start coming a little easier now.”
Knapp would go on to add another goal for Omaha, but it was too little too late as BG became the first team to knock off the Mavericks in the Qwest Center this season.
“It was huge to get that win against a good team like that at home,” Hodgson said. “We had a lot of confidence coming into that series, so it felt good to get a split out there.”
Six of the seven suspended players dressed on the weekend and four of them contributed points in their first weekend back.
“It was good getting the guys back in the lineup this weekend,” Matsumoto said. “The chemistry was a bit off, but getting those guys back on the power-play was huge. Our power-play has been off the past couple of weeks and having those guys back just helped tremendously. They’re the backbone of our power-play.”
Jon Sitko sat out this past weekend with an ankle contusion and his status is yet to be determined for this upcoming weekend.
With the win the Falcons move to 5-2-1 on the season with a CCHA record of 3-2-1. They are currently tied with Northern Michigan for the fifth spot in the league.
They will travel to Wayne State on Thursday night before returning home on Saturday to face the Warriors again in a two game home-and-home non-conference series.
