Ohio coach Sean Hogan said his team hadn’t been playing with much emotion in recent weeks heading into Saturday’s game against Robert Morris.
But by the end of the second period, when Ohio captain Michael Harris was fighting Robert Morris defenseman Derek Diaz in front of the Bobcat bench, Hogan had to hold his players back to keep their emotion from boiling over.
Harris won the fight and the Bobcats went on to win the game 6-2 at Bird Arena.
“We needed that,” Hogan said. “It got the bench going, we got emotional, we got the whole building going. And then we ran from there.”
In the final minute of the second period, Harris had barely put his second skate down leaving the penalty box when Diaz started hitting him with his stick.
“I was going to let it go because I felt like they were going to get a penalty,” Harris said. “Then after that he just clocked me right in the face and I was like, ‘Alright, well this is happening.’ ”
He and Diaz had just left the penalty box after taking offsetting minors, but they immediately set the stage for round two.
The players locked on to one another and quickly exchanged a few punches before Harris was able to jar Diaz’s helmet loose and wrestle him to the ice.
College hockey helmets are equipped with full cages to keep players more protected, but Harris said it didn’t get in his way.
“I just had to pull a little harder,” he said with a grin. “It’s okay, it still came off pretty easily.”
Though they never trailed, the Bobcats allowed the Eagles to get up from deficits earlier in the game. Harris’s fight victory helped keep Robert Morris down for good.
The Bobcats held a 4-2 lead at the end of the second period when the fight broke out. Since it happened in front of the Ohio bench, the players got an additional boost before leaving the ice for the second intermission.
“They were juiced about it,” Harris said. “Normally you’ve got tunnel vision when you’re in a fight ... I hear coach yelling at me, I hear all the boys yelling, ‘Get ‘em Harry!’ ... They definitely were pumped up in the locker room and came out hard for the third period.”
Ohio added two insurance goals in the third to cruise to its eighth win in the past nine games. After Friday’s shutout loss to Robert Morris, Hogan said his team needed a win like that.
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The win came at a price, though, because Michael Harris will be suspended for Ohio’s Dec. 4 game against Iowa State. But Hogan is less concerned about playing one game without his leading scorer and more impressed with the message the fight sent.
“When it gets competitive, you’ve got to stand up for your team,” Hogan said. “It’s part of hockey.”
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