Men's Hockey
Buckeyes Dominate Union for Sweep
By Jeff Svoboda

Final exams are finished at Ohio State for fall quarter, but that did not stop the men’s hockey team from taking Union College to school Sunday afternoon.

The Buckeyes (9-6-2, 6-4-1 CCHA) used excellent goaltending, nearly impenetrable defense, and creative forward play to defeat the Dutchmen (9-7-2 , 3-3-0 ECACHL) 6-1 in front of 3,061 at Value City Arena.

“I think you saw our team come together tonight, and that's what’s going to be there in the second half,” senior forward Dan Knapp said. “Everybody was doing their role; everybody was going out there with a purpose. They knew what their job was once they stepped on that ice.”

Knapp notched his first goal and assist since returning from injury last Friday against Alabama-Huntsville. Sophomore Tom Fritsche added a goal and two assists and juniors Bryce Anderson and Kenny Bernard each had a goal and an assist. Eleven out of 18 Buckeye skaters scored a point.

The combination of Fritsche and sophomore Domenic Maiani, who had two assists, did the most damage, starting just 2:31 into the game. Maiani dug the puck out of the left corner and found junior defenseman Tyson Strachan at the blue line. Union goaltender Kris Mayotte made the save on Strachan’s shot, but Fritsche buried the rebound for his sixth goal of the season.

After Anderson made it 2-0 at the 11:25 mark, breaking in alone on Mayotte and beating him clean, the backbreaker for Union came with just 1.5 seconds left in the first period. On the power play, a sliding Knapp passed it to Maiani in the corner, and Maiani quickly threw a diagonal pass back to the right point. There sat senior Rod Pelley, and he blasted a one-timer right over Mayotte ’s glove to make it 3-0.

“First of all, it was a poor penalty by us,” Union coach Nate Leaman said. “You put yourself in that situation, and then they pop the goal. … It just puts kind of a nail in the coffin in a lot of ways.”

Knapp said the early lead and that third goal helped OSU tremendously.

“In the past we get up 2-0 on a team and we're gripping our sticks a little too tight,” Knapp said. “We’re worried about keeping the lead instead of keep forechecking, keep backchecking, putting the pedal to the medal so to speak. Tonight we got the second goal, and then we got the third, and we came out in the second period and we kept coming and coming.”

That continued effort would lead to Knapp’s excellent goal at the 5:50 mark of the second. Knapp passed it to Fritsche in the slot, who fed a wide open Maiani with a spinning, backhanded centering pass. Mayotte stopped Maiani’s shot, but the rebound popped into the air and Knapp snuck between two defenders and batted it in out of midair.

After, the two were able to joke about the pretty play, especially Fritsche’s spinning pass.

“Domenic Maiani is pretty lucky Dan scored that one or else I’d have been giving to him,” Fritsche said. “I just think we all think pretty similar on the ice, us three. I just knew Dom was coming there.”

“I was lucky I got it because after (Fritsche) did that spin move I had my jaw on the ice and I was staring,” Knapp said. “The thing that snapped me out of it was the puck in the air, and I was like, ‘I should probably take a whack at that.’”

Ohio native Josh Coyle got Union’s lone tally with a power-play goal to make it 4-1 when he followed his own rebound and beat OSU goaltender Ian Keserich, who made 30 saves. Keserich, making his second start of the weekend after usual starter Dave Caruso had knee surgery Thursday, stopped 18 shots in the third period to improve to 2-1 on the season.

“He took advantage of his two starts and that’s what you want to see” OSU coach John Markell said. “He has to understand we do have a No. 1 and he takes the bulk of the time, but to prepare himself accordingly, that you never know when your chances are going to happen.”

Junior defenseman Matt Waddell made it 5-1 with 52 seconds left in the second period, blasting a slap shot past Mayotte after a pretty cross-ice feed from junior Andrew Schembri. To finish the scoring, Bernard scored his second of the year, tapping a loose puck home short-handed with three minutes to play.

Markell was happy with the Buckeyes performance in their final game before the holiday break.

“I thought it was a good solid effort tonight,” he said. “Obviously when you score some goals it’s not as critical if you make mistakes, so we got little bit of a buffer and I thought we used it well. I was very happy with our consistency”

One of those mistakes came on the penalty kill. Union finished 1-for-7 on the power play with 15 shots on goal.

“I thought they did a good job of teaching us something about our PK and we're going to have to really pay attention to that because people watch tape of it,” Markell said. “We're going to have to make adjustments so we don't get exposed on that.”

Another area OSU excelled in throughout the weekend was physical play. The Buckeyes continuously finished their checks, and the checking line of Sam Campbell, Kyle Hood and Bernard created numerous chances offensively as well.

“You could tell that (our checking) was starting to wear on them because of the way they were reacting.” Markell said. “Our guys were feeling that there was a little bit of chippiness at the end. Maybe that’s through good aggressive play.”

Mayotte was pulled after two periods with 24 saves on 29 shots. Sophomore Justin Mrazek took over and stopped six of seven OSU attempts. The Buckeyes won the shot count 36-31, but the final differential belies the Buckeyes domination; they were up 29-13 after two periods of play, after which the game was essentially over. OSU was 1-for-4 on the power play.

Ohio State enters the holiday break with a 7-1-1 record in its last nine games. The Buckeyes return to action at the Ohio Holiday Classic Dec. 29 and 30 at Nationwide Arena. Miami University , Holy Cross, and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute will also participate.

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