The Michigan State Spartans club finished the regular season on a high note, getting a shutout performance from goaltender Jeff Lerg, as the Spartans downed the Bowling Green Falcons, 4-0, at the BG Ice Arena on Saturday night.<\/p>\n
The junior netminder from Livonia, Michigan came up with 32 saves to notch his 4th shutout of the season, a career high.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve had a few games where they scored late on me to take the shutout away, so it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s nice to be able to finish this one out,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Lerg. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m usually not a shutout goaltender. I usually give up one or two on a consistent basis, but I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll take them when they come.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It was a strong effort by our team,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said BG coach Scott Paluch. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We worked hard. I just thought Michigan State was very solid and alert defensively tonight. We were able to get some shots through and have some territorial possession at times, but we just couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t break through.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We thought about not playing Jeff, but were better when he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s in there, so we went with our best,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said MSU coach Rick Comley.<\/p>\n
The Spartan defense stepped up to help the cause as well, giving the Falcons limited opportunities to penetrate the offensive zone, while creating turnovers at the blue line.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153The defense was pretty solid,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Comley. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Bowling Green has pretty good speed. Our group of defensemen played one of their better games. We didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get outnumbered tonight. Last night, they had a lot of odd-man rushes. Tonight, they didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get that.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153The team did a real good defensive job,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d explained Lerg. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Yesterday was a real sloppy game. We had too many turnovers in the neutral zone, but today, we played a good, smart road game. We got the lead early, and played a good defensive game after that.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Chris Mueller and Tim Kennedy scored the first two goals for MSU, both coming off turnovers, allowing the Spartans to begin pulling away in the game.<\/p>\n
Mueller netted the Spartans\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 opening goal at 5:42 of the 1st period. Linemate Tim Kennedy picked up the puck off a turnover in the MSU zone. He fed a pass to Mueller who took off on a breakaway, beating Jimmy Spratt on the glove side for his 11th goal of the season.<\/p>\n
Kennedy increased the lead to 2-0 midway through the 2nd period. Putting on the brakes at the circle to lose a defender, Kennedy was able to fire a wrister that found an opening at the right side of the net for his 18th goal of the season.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We got caught,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Paluch. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153They left a guy back on the first goal, and we didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get the great read for the breakaway goal. We don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get the puck deep on the second one, and they get the 2 on 1.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Jeff Dunne and Mueller each added two more goals to complete the scoring.<\/p>\n
With thirds place secured, the Spartans receive a first-round bye in the CCHA playoffs.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153All year we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve shown that we can play with everybody,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Comley. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t gotten everything figured out yet. That quality of opponent now gets better on a consistent basis. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re capable. Whether we can put it together at the level we need to, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not sure. But we certainly have shown all year that we can play with everybody.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Last year we stumbled into [the playoffs],\u00e2\u20ac\u009d added Lerg. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We had to do a 180 to get going. This year, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a better situation where we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got guys playing well. Defense wins championships and tonight was a good sign.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
The Falcons, who entered the weekend in a four\u00e2\u20ac”way tie for 5th place in the league, drop to 7th and will host Lake Superior State in the first round of the CCHA playoffs next weekend.<\/p>\n
The seventh place finish is well above the 12th place prediction made by both the media and coaches in the preseason.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We wanted fifth place, so we didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t accomplish that,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Paluch. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153But we did earn the opportunity to play at home in the playoffs, at that was a positive step. Compared to where we finished a year ago, there was definite progress made. Now, we want to focus on earning the chance of getting to the second round of the playoffs.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Michigan State Spartans club finished the regular season on a high note, getting a shutout performance from goaltender Jeff Lerg, as the Spartans downed the Bowling Green Falcons, 4-0, at the BG Ice Arena on Saturday night. The junior netminder from Livonia, Michigan came up with 32 saves to notch his 4th shutout of […]<\/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\/8818"}],"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=8818"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8818\/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=8818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8818"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=8818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}