On Friday night, the Bowling Green hockey team lost to the U.S. National Development Program Team 6-1.
Senior forward Bryce Williamson scored the lone goal for the Falcons, while Tomas Sholl and Tommy Burke shared time in net in the losing effort.
“There wasn’t much detail to our game from the goaltender out to start, and then the game got out of hand,” BG head coach Chris Bergeron said.
The Falcons held USNTDP scoreless on the power play throughout the night, killing all six of their power play chances. The Falcons however, went 0-for-5 on the power play Friday night. USNTDP also outshot the Falcons by a 26-24 margin.
“It was a pretty poor effort. The details were poor,” Bergeron said. “We went into the game with a poor mindset. That momentum began to snowball and we couldn’t stop it.”
USNTDP scored the first three goals of the game in the first period. U.S. Development Team’s Louie Belpedio scored the first goal 4:59 into the game, followed by Alex Tuch at 16:06 and Anders Bjork at the 17:03 mark in the first period.
“They’ve got a high level of skill,” Bergeron said. “If we were able to make it a game that we want to play, that we’re pretty good at when we’re playing it, it would have made it a game, regardless of what the result would have been. We didn’t give ourselves a chance from the goaltenders out.”
BG broke the shutout 3:22 into the second period with Williamson’s goal, which made the score 3-1. Williamson received a pass across the slot in the left circle and took a wrist shot towards a screen in front of the net. The puck went underneath U.S. goalie’s Blake Weyrick’s right arm and into the back of the net for the Falcons’ only goal of the game.
BG was held scoreless for the remainder of the night, giving the USNTDP the 6-1 victory in the exhibition match.
“Our goaltenders have struggled,” Bergeron said. “We’re looking for answers there in terms of somebody stepping up and getting the job done, but that doesn’t get anybody off the hook. There has to be way more detail and purpose to what we’re doing.”
The Falcons will be back in WCHA action this Friday and Saturday night against the Northern Michigan Wildcats in Marquette, Mich. The weekend conference series will be the final regular season road trip for BG. The puck is set to drop at 7:07 p.m. on both nights.
