EAST LANSING, Mich. — When Michigan State junior defenseman Travis Walsh scored his first collegiate goal in his 81st game, he did more than record a personal milestone.
According to Spartans’ coach Tom Anastos, the goal helped fuel the team en route to a 4-1 win over Ferris State and a split on the weekend with the ranked Bulldogs.
“Scoring that goal was good for ‘Walshy’ because he hasn’t scored, and it was good for our team,” said Anastos. “I thought that was a real confidence boost.”
Beginning with Walsh’s goal at 16:50 in the first, the Spartans scored three unanswered goals in a nine-minute span of play to take a 3-0 lead over Ferris State into the third period.
With the Spartans cycling low, Walsh shot from the left circle and beat FSU senior goaltender C.J. Motte on the short side, and then at 18:08, Mackenzie MacEachern picked up Brent Darnell’s rebounded shot for the 2-0 Michigan State lead.
At 5:50 in the second, Villiam Haag netted his first of the season for Michigan State when he took a cross-crease feed from J.T. Stenglein.
Motte had quite a workout in the game and the weekend, stopping 31 shots tonight and 36 in Friday’s 1-0 Ferris State shutout.
“He played fine,” said FSU coach Bob Daniels. “He played well all weekend, and he has played well all year.”
Daniels said that the issue for the Bulldogs was puck possession.
“I thought we were hemmed in a lot,” Daniels explained. “I thought we spent a lot of time in our end of the rink. I thought we did last night, too, more than I’d like to see. I thought as the game went on, though, we got better at that. I thought we got more engaged and I thought we spent less time in our end and consequently, we started drawing some penalties. Actually, I was optimistic in the second and third period in how we played.”
At 4:17 in the third, Justin Buzzeo scored to cut the Spartans’ lead to two, but at 13:20, Matt Berry’s power-play goal cancelled any momentum the Bulldogs may have gained from Buzzeo’s goal.
“I thought it was probably our best game of the season, and I thought we played pretty well last night,” said Anastos. “What I liked as much as the play and the result tonight was that I thought our guys came in very business-like today and believed in each other and in the process of getting better and stayed with it.
“I think coming out of the weekend, there’s a lot of growth in our team, and that was a positive. Very positive weekend, even though I would have loved to have two wins.”
Daniels, too, saw a lot of pluses from the split.
“As long as we’re developing opportunities and chances and I thought the power play looked better tonight than it has in a while,” said Daniels. “We didn’t capitalize on it, but I thought we had the possession in zone, we had some time, we had some shots, but didn’t convert on them.
“We’re 3-4, so we’re not overly excited about that, but by the same token, I like what I see.”
