In hopes of starting 2008 with a conference win, Notre Dame traveled to the Berry Events Center to take on Northern Michigan. Coming into the series, the Wildcats hold the all-series lead (18-13-5) against the Irish with a home record of 8-4-2 and weren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t willing to lend to the Irish\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s tally, besting them 2-1. <\/p>\n
The first period began with vigor, both teams seemingly eager to get back to CCHA play after last weekend\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s holiday tournaments. The defense skated hard and obstructed the puck blocking several scoring opportunities before they reached the net. <\/p>\n
At 10:31, Wildcat sophomore, Matt Butcher, popped the puck over the left shoulder of Fighting Irish goalie Jordan Pearce to put the \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcCats on the board. <\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Matt is a very good, young prospect,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d coach Walt Kyle said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The sky\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the limit with him. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a very good player and he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s really stepped up this season.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n
The first period ended with a score of 1-0 and the \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcCats outshooting the Irish 9-5. <\/p>\n
Freshman Mark Olver added another goal to the Wildcats\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 tally 6:30 into the second period on a power play with a fast shot past Pearce\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s right leg. <\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Mark was outstanding tonight,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Kyle said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153He came to play. He and his line played very well.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n
At 10:34 the Irish made their scoreboard debut with a shot from sophomore Dan Kissel. After an uncalled slash to the mask against Notre Dame, aggression picked up. The second period ended with a four-man brawl, penalizing two players from each team. <\/p>\n
The Wildcats\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 started the third period one man down as senior Matt Siddall served an unsportsmanlike conduct call. The Irish were unable to utilize the power play and took a hooking penalty a mere 23 seconds later. Despite another power play for each time, the third remained scoreless leaving the Wildcats with a 2-1 win. <\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Notre Dame is a very good team,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Kyle said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re difficult to play against and make it tough to get opportunities. We played well. Brian Stewart made some great saves.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n
Stewart, NMU\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s goalie, had 21 saves for the evening with the help of the Wildcat defense. <\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Our defense was great tonight,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Stewart said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153They battled hard, especially at the end of the game. They made my job a lot easier. They blocked a lot of shots before they got to the net. It was great.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll have to play better tomorrow because they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going to bring a better game,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Kyle said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s one of three nights all year we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve held a team scoreless on power plays and that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a lot to build on.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n
The Wildcats (9-11-1 overall, 6-9-0 in the CCHA) will host the Irish (17-5-0, 10-2-0) again Saturday night at 7:35 p.m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In hopes of starting 2008 with a conference win, Notre Dame traveled to the Berry Events Center to take on Northern Michigan. Coming into the series, the Wildcats hold the all-series lead (18-13-5) against the Irish with a home record of 8-4-2 and weren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t willing to lend to the Irish\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s tally, besting them 2-1. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22374,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8568"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8568"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8568\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8568"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=8568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}