BOWLING GREEN — Bowling Green State University hockey struggled to capitalize on penalties in Game 1 of the Western Collegiate Hockey Association tournament quarterfinals. In Game 2 against Northern Michigan, the Falcons scored two of their five goals while on the power play in a 5-0 win at the Slater Family Ice Arena on Saturday.
A win for the third-seeded Falcons forces a do-or-die Game 3 Sunday at 5 p.m. The team that moves on to the WCHA semifinals will face Lake Superior State.
Cameron Wright scored the Falcons’ first goal at the 8:13 mark in the first period after a pass from Max Johnson, a senior forward. Johnson and Brandon Kruse, also a senior forward, received the assists on the play.
In Game 1, the Falcons were 0-for-4 on power plays. One night later BG was able to score on its second power play with 40 seconds left in the first period. Ethan Scardina, a freshman forward, then scored unassisted for the Falcons to take a 2-0 lead. It was Scardina’s first goal of the season and his first of his collegiate career. After a review, the goal stood for the Falcons.
“We didn't win the special teams battle last night. And obviously that was a huge piece of the game,” coach Ty Eigner said. “So it was a goal of ours tonight, to make sure that if you can win the special teams battle in a game more often than not, you're going to give yourself a really good chance to win. So we challenged our power play to be better and work harder and make life a little bit more difficult on their goaltender.”
Alex Barber scored the second power-play goal for the Falcons. The junior forward was assisted by Sam Craggs, a senior forward, and Tim Theocharidis, a junior defenseman. BG was 2 for 5 in power plays, while Northern Michigan was 0 for 2.
“Our effort on the power play was a lot better,” Eigner said. “We worked a lot harder ... and we matched their effort tonight.”
The Falcons shut out the Wildcats for the second time this year. In the regular season, BG (19-9-1) was 3-0-1 against Northern Michigan (9-15-1), the No. 6-seed in the tournament.
Evan Dougherty, a junior forward, scored at 3:05 in the third period and was assisted by Craggs and Johnson.
Fewer than two minutes later Dougherty scored his second goal of the game and his eighth of the season with assists from junior defenseman Will Cullen and senior defenseman Justin Wells.
BG took more more than double the amount of shots on goal than Northern Michigan (50-23). The Wildcats were held to just seven shots on goal in the first period.
Scardina was injured during the game and was taken out after an injury to his head. The freshman had a head and neck injury earlier this season. Eigner said the team will know more on Sunday, but he is conscious and responsive.
Saturday night’s win against Northern Michigan puts the Falcons at 20 wins for the season. It extends BG’s streak of 20 or more wins in a season to seven.
“We told them today for the first time all year we're not guaranteed another game tomorrow,” Eigner said. “The only way we can guarantee ourselves another game is to win. We can say the same message will be tomorrow in order for us to play another game this year, we have to win tomorrow. So our attitude it doesn't matter how we do it, who's the hero, how many shifts you play, our sole focus is to win the game, to guarantee ourselves another game.”
First Published March 14, 2021, 2:56 a.m.
