The Lake Superior State Lakers took early control of the game against Bowling Green on Saturday night, doubling up the Falcons in an 8-4 victory, gaining a series split on the weekend.<\/p>\n
“We played better,” said LSSU coach Jim Roque. “We needed to respond to last night. We need to find a level of consistency night in and night out. We’re 25 games in, and I still haven’t figured it out.” <\/p>\n
Lake Superior (7-11-8; 4-8-6-1 CCHA) racked up four opening-period goals against BG netminder Jimmy Spratt, three of them on the power play, putting the Falcons on their heels the entire night.<\/p>\n
The win came with some bad news, however. LSSU goaltender Brian Mahoney-Wilson sustained a head injury that caused the sophomore to be transported to a local hospital after being carried off on a stretcher. <\/p>\n
The play occurred late in the second period. BG’s Brandon Svendsen, driving towards the net on a scoring opportunity, was hooked from behind by the Lakers’ Pat Aubry and sent careening into Mahoney-Wilson. The goaltender hit his head on the ice and was knocked out momentarily. After a lengthy stoppage, medical staff sent Mahoney-Wilson to the Wood County hospital as a precaution. <\/p>\n
“They’re worried about his neck,” said Roque. “He has a sore neck, but he’ll be all right.”<\/p>\n
The Falcons (9-14-3; 6-11-1 CCHA) had trouble staying out of the box in the first period, getting rung up for four penalties. Lake State was able to take advantage of the BG penalties by scoring a trio of power-play goals. Josh Sim scored at 1:53 to put the Lakers on the board. Rick Schofield then picked up a pair of power-play goals just 27 seconds apart to give the Lakers a comfortable lead.<\/p>\n
“We got a couple of good bounces,” said Roque of his team’s power play. “I wouldn’t say we did anything special on the power play. We got a little bit of puck luck on those two goals.”<\/p>\n
“The penalties in the first period and our inability to kill them certainly put us in a bad situation early,” said Falcons’ coach Scott Paluch. “Our penalty kill, which has been pretty good for us lately, had an opportunity to set the tone early on with a couple of kills, but we didn’t do that. We could just never get ourselves close enough after that.<\/p>\n
“[Lake Superior] had their chances early. That penalty right out of the gate, and the two to follow it up never gave us a chance to play five-on-five.”<\/p>\n
BG’s David Solway put the Falcons on the board at 18:32 with a power-play blast from in front of the crease to give the Falcons some short-lived momentum.<\/p>\n
The Lakers gained it back, scoring at 19:59 on a Dan Darczuk deflection into the net from the stick of Simon Gysbers. The goal was the nail in Bowling Green’s coffin.<\/p>\n
“That was a big goal for us, especially when they made it 3-1,” said Roque. “Every time they came back, we came up with another one.”<\/p>\n
“We gave up a lot of goals in the swing part of the game,” explained Paluch. “One second left, two minutes in, one and a half minute in, it was too many swing goals that didn’t allow us to take control of the game and take the momentum.”<\/p>\n
From that point on, the contest was more or less evenly-played, with the two teams trading goals throughout the rest of the game. <\/p>\n
The Lakers extended their lead just two minutes into the middle period as Kyle Pobur drove a shot through traffic, finding the five-hole of Nick Eno, who came on to replace Jimmy Spratt after the first period. For Pobur, the goal was his first collegiate marker.<\/p>\n
The Falcons cut the Lakers lead to 5-2 at 8:48 with a short-handed tally. Brandon Svendsen picked up a loose puck at center ice, skated in on Mahoney-Wilson, and beat the goaltender for his eighth goal of the year.<\/p>\n
The two teams then traded goals to close out the period, with Pat Aubry scoring for LSSU and Wade Finegan picking up his first collegiate goal for the Falcons. <\/p>\n
The Lakers continued applying pressure in the third. Will Acton scored at 1:34 of the final stanza on a scrum in front of Eno, getting his fourth goal of the season, and giving the Lakers a 7-3 lead. <\/p>\n
BG picked up its goal at 10:33 of the period. Solway found the five-hole of Pat Inglis from the left circle for his 12th goal of the year. <\/p>\n
Nathan Perkovich added an empty-net goal with less than two minutes to play to cap the scoring.<\/p>\n
Mahoney-Wilson and Inglis combined for 30 saves on the night in 34 chances.<\/p>\n
Spratt and Eno combined for 28 saves on the night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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