Bearcats Return Victorious, Defeat Number One Hope
The UC Bearcats returned home from Michigan 12-4 on the season, after splitting the weekend’s series, losing Friday to Davenport University, but later defeating Hope College in the most exciting victory of the season.
Only a few hours after arriving in Michigan Friday, the Bearcats travelled to Patterson Ice Arena to take on now 6-6 Davenport University at 8 p.m. Despite the long trip, UC seemed primed to give number seven ranked Davenport a run for their money as the first period began.
UC took first blood, Steven Louie, assisted by team captain Mike Jagelewski, scoring at 17:20. This would prove to be the only point for the Bearcats, and Davenport answered back with only 36 seconds remaining in the period, tieing the score at 1-1 going into the second period.
Starting center Alex Silvestros received a minor penalty for hooking, and a ten minute misconduct at 8:52 in the second, rendering him ineligible to play for the remainder of the period.
“[The penalty] was frustrating, for him and for us,” said starting goalie Ted Riolo, “It’s hard to get momentum going with your starting center in the box for 12 minutes. It couldn’t have happened at a worse time.”
Riolo, it seems, was correct, as the game would remain deadlocked for less than a minute after Silvestros was put in the box. At 7:54 Davenport scored on the power play against Riolo, and, a little over a minute later, they scored again. Despite solid play in the first, Riolo was pulled in favor of rookie goalie Greg Geyer.
The line-up change wasn’t enough to stop the bleeding, however, and Davenport scored again at 3:08 and 1:13 and the Bearcats retired to the locker room for the second time trailing by 4.
The third period was no better for UC, Davenport scoring first at 18:47, taking the score to 6-1. Within a five minute interval, Davenport racked up four more goals before UC got their feet under them and managed to prevent another point for nearly all the rest of the period.
At 49.8 remaining in play, the Davenport captain scored on Geyer, and a shoving match ensued, ending with the Davenport captain pinning the goalie to the ice. Defenseman Jake Bonta stepped in to assist Geyer, and received a five-minute major penalty according to the ‘third man’ rule, as well as a game DQ. Both Geyer and the Davenport captain received roughing minors.
Time expired, and the Bearcats left Patterson Ice Arena with an 11-1 loss. Silvestros commented on the loss, saying, “It was a frustrating game. In the first period, we held them. Then they came out fired up. It was an 11-1 game, but it shouldn’t have been.” Riolo agreed, and added, “We just have to forget about tonight and move on.”
And move on they did. Saturday night saw UC at The Edge ice arena, taking on the number one team in the ACHA D3 North Conference, the now 9-2 Hope College Flying Dutchmen. Both teams were coming off loses the previous evening, the Bearcats from Davenport, and Hope from Saginaw State.
“We expected them to come out hard in the first,” said Riolo, “and they had the crowd behind them.” The crowd itself was sizeble, nearly 300 strong, and for the first few minutes the extra support seemed to be working in Hope’s favor. continue reading Bearcats Return Victorious, Defeat Number One Hope
