BGSU Hockey held their home opener earlier Sunday evening, hosting the revived program of the Robert Morris Colonials.
Safe to say there was a lot to be desired from the Falcons tonight.
The Falcons dropped their first home game of the season in a 3-0 loss to the Colonials, and it almost seemed as if the two teams just simply swapped places from a night ago, which saw BGSU get a win in Pittsburgh, 3-0.
The first period kicked off with Robert Morris winning the faceoff but Bowling Green getting the puck back almost instantly. The game went back and forth for a while until the Colonials had a big scoring chance come up empty eight minutes into the period.
Then, after their second power play, the Falcons looked poised, creating a lot of offensive pressure and generating shots on Robert Morris goaltender Chad Veltri.
Around 16 minutes into the game, RMU’s Dominic Schimizzi recorded the first goal of the night and his first goal of the 2023-24 season, with assists by Walter Zacher and Gavin Gulash.
The period ended with another power play for Robert Morris, and then a final one for Bowling Green that would continue into the second period.
After one, the offenses were tied for shots on goal, both with 10, but the Colonials came up more shots overall with 18 shots compared to 14 for Bowling Green.
Second period was more of the same; Bowling Green with a lot of possession over the puck but unable to convert on their offensive pressure.
Veltri had 33 saves on the night, just seven under his 40 from the previous night in Pittsburgh.
Robert Morris took advantage of their third power play to make the score 2-0 off the stick of McKay Hayes, with assists coming from Cameron Herbert and Cameron Garvey.
Momentum from here and throughout the period felt massively in the favor of the Colonials, as the Falcons struggled to get any offense moving.
Going into the third, the Falcons generated solid offense, leading the Colonials in shots on goal (22-17), but none of those 22 found the back of the net.
Starting the third, there was a fastbreak that BG goalie Christian Stoever got the save of, which led to a part of the game where both teams had good momentum and good offensive pressures, neither goalie getting a chance to breathe.
The Falcons couldn’t get any substantial offensive pressure going until late in the third, where the decision was made to pull Stoever for another skater, which after an offensive turnover led to an empty net goal from Logan Ganie with 46.2 seconds to go.
And just to put an ugly bow on the home opener, just before the end of the game, a fight between BG’s Brandon Santa Juana and RMU’s Jackson Reinke broke out, where Santa Juana received a roughing after the whistle penalty and Reinke received a 10-minute unsportsmanlike conduct penalty.
Interim Head Coach Curtis Carr believed that despite the donut on the scoreboard, chances were there because of their own doing.
“We had a really good first, okay second, and then I thought the last 15 minutes or so in the third we had a lot of chances. Just didn’t capitalize”.
The Falcons head out to Sioux Falls next week to take on another new hockey program in the Augustana Vikings. Augustana opened their season 0-2 at Wisconsin and will have their first ever home hockey game October 14th against BG.
Puck drop for that game will be at 7:07 p.m. EST.
“It’s just nice to be playing,” Carr said. “It’s a long season. Pre-season’s pretty long too and the guys have been working really hard, and they’ve been really good in practice and focused, and you know it’s just fun to get going and get the season going.”
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