Notre Dame got single goals from Ian Cole, Ryan Thang, Ben Ryan and Kevin Deeth and freshman goaltender Brad Phillips made 13 saves to lead the Irish to a 4-1 win over Alabama-Huntsville at the Houston Field House. The contest was the opening game of the 57th Rensselaer Hockey Tournament.<\/p>\n
The win was the first for Notre Dame in the R.P.I. Tournament
\nas the Irish make their third-ever appearance, having played here in 1988-89 and 2000-01.<\/p>\n
For two periods, the game had quite a resemblance to last
\nseason\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s NCAA first round game, when the Chargers extended
\nNotre Dame to double overtime in a 3-2 Irish win. On Friday
\nnight, the Irish out shot UAH by a 27-10 margin but led just 1-0.<\/p>\n
This time the culprit was freshman goaltender Cameron Talbot
\nwho held the Irish at bay until the 17:36 mark of the second
\nperiod when Ian Cole found the back of the net with his first
\ngoal of the season.<\/p>\n
On the night, the Irish would out shoot Alabama-Huntsville by
\na 41-14 margin to improve their record to 11-4-0 overall and
\nadvance to the championship game of the tournament on
\nSaturday. The Chargers fell to 1-7-1 on the year and will
\nplay for third place on Saturday.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153When you run into a really good goaltender, you just can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t
\nlose your patience,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Notre Dame head coach Jeff Jackson.
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what I stressed between periods, to be patient and
\njust play our game. Sometimes you have to sacrifice your ego
\nand just go win the hockey game.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Jackson also didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t believe the game resembled last year\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s
\ntournament game. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s two different teams; Danton Cole is a
\nnew coach. That really wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t a point of emphasis,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said
\nJackson.<\/p>\n
Notre Dame dominated play in the first, out shooting the
\nChargers by a 16-3 margin. The second saw UAH take more of
\nthe play to the Irish , getting seven shots in the period only
\nto be stopped by Phillips who was making his second career
\nstart.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve worked hard on protecting the puck and supporting play
\nin the neutral zone and we did that well in the first period,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\ncommented Jackson. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I thought we showed good patience with
\nthe puck.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Cole would be the first to find a dent in Talbot\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s armor when
\nhe got his first collegiate goal late in the second period.
\nHe benefited from some strong work behind the net by Mark Van
\nGuilder and Ben Ryan to control the puck.<\/p>\n
Van Guilder would find Cole coming down the slot and the
\nfreshmen defenseman unleashed a slap shot from the hash marks
\nthat found its way through Talbot\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s pads for the 1-0 lead
\nafter two periods.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I think last year was in the back of our minds a little bit
\nbefore Ian (Cole) scored,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said sophomore center Kevin Deeth.
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Credit their goalie, he really played well. Coach just kept
\ntelling us to be patient.<\/p>\n
The offense got rolling in the third period as the Irish
\nscored twice in a 2:06 span.<\/p>\n
Thang got his eighth of the season as he followed Erik Condra
\non a shot at 2:13, tapping a rebound past Talbot in the
\ncrease. Condra carried the puck around the Charger defense
\nand slid a shot on goal that Talbot lost control of and Thang
\nbanged it home for a 2-0 lead.<\/p>\n
Ryan got his second point of the night and fourth goal of the
\nseason at 4:19 when Van Guilder found him at the bottom of the
\nleft wing circle and he tucked it under the cross bar for the
\n3-0 lead.<\/p>\n
Phillips, making his second career start, saw his shutout bid
\nsnapped just 31 seconds after Ryan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s goal when the Chargers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122
\nJoe Federoff fired a shot from the right boards that Notre
\nDame\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s freshman goaltender appeared to stop. The puck
\nsqueezed between Phillips pads and the right post for
\nFederoff\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s third goal of the season.<\/p>\n
The Irish closed out the scoring on a Deeth power-play goal at
\n14:47, his first goal of the season. Defenseman Kyle Lawson
\nkept the puck in at the right point and moved it to Thang in
\nthe right corner. Thang found Deeth in the slot and he
\none-timed a shot past Talbot for the 4-1 final score.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It was nice to finally get the monkey off my back,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said
\nDeeth who scored his first goal of the season and first in 19
\ngames dating back to last year\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s CCHA playoffs. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve hit the
\npost, missed open nets and finally got one. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think
\nI\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve played bad, the puck just hasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t gone in.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Talbot finished the game with 37 saves while Phillips had 13
\non the night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Notre Dame got single goals from Ian Cole, Ryan Thang, Ben Ryan and Kevin Deeth and freshman goaltender Brad Phillips made 13 saves to lead the Irish to a 4-1 win over Alabama-Huntsville at the Houston Field House. The contest was the opening game of the 57th Rensselaer Hockey Tournament. The win was the first […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22374,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8452"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8452"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8452\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8452"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=8452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}