After surrendering two power-play goals in the first period, Wayne State could have easily packed up and accepted defeat to Alabama-Huntsville.<\/p>\n
But that would be no way for the defending College Hockey America champions to react to the 2-0 deficit they faced at the end of 20 minutes. Instead, WSU (5-8-2, 3-1-1 CHA) scored four straight goals and held off a late surge by UAH (10-7-0, 5-4-0 CHA) for a 4-3 win at the Great Lakes Sports City.<\/p>\n
Even so, Wayne State head coach Bill Wilkinson wasn’t 100 percent happy with the victory. “Our intensity was very sporadic tonight,” Wilkinson said. “We can’t rely on [netminder] David Guerrera to win games for us night in and night out.”<\/p>\n
Guerrera made 30 saves for WSU while Mark Byrne stopped 28 shots for Alabama-Huntsville.<\/p>\n
Doug Watkins got the Chargers on the board first on a power play at 10:29 of the first period. Watkins took a feed at the bottom of the left faceoff dot and beat Guerrera from a sharp angle. Then Ryan Leasa wired a shot from the left point that Guerrera never saw to give the visitors a 2-0 lead on a 4-on-3 power play.<\/p>\n
Wayne State skated out for the second period with newfound energy. First Billy Collins scored on a power play at 8:17 and Travis Rycroft followed at 10:18 just as the man-advantage expired. The two goals made up for co-captain Jason Durbin getting stopped cold by Byrne on a penalty shot early in the period. Byrne necessitated the penalty shot by purposely knocking the net off the pegs during a mad scramble in the crease.<\/p>\n
The Rycroft goal was the result of hard work — hard work Wilkinson expected from Rycroft’s line.<\/p>\n
“I thought the Rycroft-[Reegan] Rehm-[Jon] Brink line gave us a lot of energy tonight,” said Wilkinson. “You need a line like that to inject some life into the rest of the team.”<\/p>\n
Alabama-Huntsville head coach Doug Ross said the second period was the turning point.<\/p>\n
“We lost our focus in the second,” Ross said. “We weren’t very strong on the puck and I give [Wayne State] credit for taking advantage of it and coming back and tying it up.”<\/p>\n
Nathan Rosychuk put WSU up 3-2 3:57 into the third period with a nice move in tight on Byrne.<\/p>\n
Nick Shrader added some breathing room for the Warriors at 15:32. Shrader’s initial shot was stopped by Byrne, but the rebound came right to Shrader’s stick and he banged it past the sprawled netminder.<\/p>\n
Wayne State played dump and chase the rest of the game, but Keith Rowe scored on a 6-on-4 power play with ten seconds left in the game. Rowe took a nice pass from behind the net and one-timed it past Guerrera.<\/p>\n
“We didn’t put together three periods tonight,” Ross said. “It was a hard-fought game and I think it could have gone either way. We just need to play better 5-on-5.<\/p>\n
“But they got the breaks tonight. Tomorrow night we’ll have to focus on playing together for three solid periods and we’ll see what happens.<\/p>\n
“Stats will show that 75 percent of the time the team that scores first wins the game,” Wilkinson added. “We need to get better at starting better.<\/p>\n
“Tonight wasn’t a lucky win. It was a David Guerrera win.”<\/p>\n
Game time Saturday night at the Great Lakes Sports City is 7:05 p.m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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