Kent State rolled into Bird Arena this weekend looking to play spoilers to the Ohio hockey team's chance to clinch the regular season title.
Instead the Golden Flashes were dominated by No. 3 Ohio, who swept Kent State to handily defend its Central States Collegiate Hockey League regular season title.
We don't want anyone to come in and beat us in Bird Arena
forward Paul Warriner said. That's our territory and we take a lot of pride in winning games in front of our fans.
The Bobcats (19-7-5, 15-3-2 CSCHL) are the first team to win back-to-back CSCHL regular season titles since Michigan-Dearborn did in 1998 and 1999. The title is Ohio's sixth in their 12 years in the league.
Coach talked about it in the locker room -we really don't talk about last year any more Warriner said. It's not the same team as last year
and it's the first thing that this year's team has won. We have a lot of new guys on the team
and they all have the winning feeling now.
Ohio came out firing Friday night, bombarding the Kent State net with 25 shots in the first period and scoring less than two minutes into the game when a quick shot from Brandon Hanley found the back of the net.
An early 3-1 Ohio lead vanished in the second period as the Golden Flashes caught a few lucky bounces to tie the score 3-3.
Jim Fuhs ended Kent State's momentum with a little more than one minute left in the period, scoring on a pretty passing play on the power play with assists going to Hanley and Joe Branco.
It was all Ohio after that, with goals from Nick Bassarab and Dave Fitzgerald that sealed the 6-4 victory for the Bobcats.
A power play goal gave the Bobcats an early lead Saturday night, but the second period proved to be the undoing of the Golden Flashes.
As the game became more physical, Ohio goals from Fuhs, Justin Althof, Daniel Richardson and Dennis Belkin came within a 2:20 span to all but finish Kent State. Late goals from Josh Granum and Fitzgerald padded Ohio's lead and eventual 7-1 win.
We showed how this team can play
Richardson said. We played a good first period
but in the second we really wanted to prove what kind of team we are.
Ryan Baksh was superb in net for the Bobcats, making 40 saves. Ohio is now 15-1-1 at home and has won its past five games.
We know it's getting down to crunch time
and it's time to elevate our play to prepare ourselves
Baksh said. We're pretty much treating every game from here on out as a must-win game.
The Bobcats look to continue building momentum for the CSCHL playoffs this weekend when they play host to rival Miami at 7:30 p.m. on Friday and Saturday night in Bird Arena.
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