Coach Sean Hogan gets 2-0 start to Bobcats coaching career.
It’s always good to live up to a little bit of preseason hype.
Ohio entered its season-opening weekend series against John Carroll as the ninth-ranked team in the American Collegiate Hockey Association, and it backed that ranking up with a pair of big wins on its home ice.
The Bobcats won Friday night’s contest with a final score of 5-0, then turned around and won Saturday night’s game 2-1. It was the first two games under new coach Sean Hogan.
Ohio outshot John Carroll by a combined total of 101-17 in the two games.
“I think (the shot advantage) shows that we’re good on defense,” Hogan said. “We do a good job of not allowing opportunities, and then we’re good in transition and creating opportunities for ourselves. So that’s a positive for sure.”
“The negative side of that is that we had 101 shots and only seven goals. So, we have to create better opportunities by getting bodies in front, because we’re big and strong.”
Junior forward Michael Harris was the star of Friday night’s action, scoring two goals early that set the tone for the rest of the game. Sophomore forward Patrick Spellacy went on to add one goal late in the second period, while junior forward Vincent Nicolella and senior defender Mike Kretz added back-to-back goals in the third that sunk the Bluestreaks for good.
“We just outworked them I think,” Harris said. “A team like us just needs to outwork our opponents. We have the skill there, and the only thing that’s going to separate us is hard work. If we bring that, a lot of teams are going to struggle to have a good game against us, as we saw this weekend.”
The Bobcats again were the first team to light up the scoreboard Saturday night, when junior forward Logan Pfeffer scored the game’s first goal with just under eight minutes remaining in the first period.
After John Carroll tied it with their only goal of the series in the closing minutes of the first, junior forward Derek Rahme delivered a strike past the John Carroll goalie to provide what would become the deciding goal of the contest.
The Bobcats held off a late run by the Bluestreaks, assisted by some Ohio penalties, to seal the win.
Ohio will remain at home next weekend when it takes on Pittsburgh in a two-game series.
“We want to improve the mental errors,” Rahme said. “We’re gonna get in better shape, and we’re gonna do those little things a little better. We’re not going to treat any opponent differently. The effort’s going to be there, the hitting is going to be there, and we’re going to put plenty of shots on them.”
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