The Ohio State men’s hockey team swept Wayne State over the weekend in two very different games.
In game one, OSU demolished Wayne State in a 9-0 thrashing.
The game was highlighted by an offensive explosion in the third period, when the Buckeyes scorched the net with five goals.
OSU received outstanding play from goaltender Mike Betz. Betz came up with his second shutout this season and his third career shutout as a Buckeye.
“We put 60 minutes together. It is something we really needed to do,” Betz said.
“We came out with a sense of urgency after the first period.” forward Mike McCormick said.
“They (Wayne State) played well and didn’t deserve to lose by that score. We took care of our opportunities tonight,” OSU coach John Markell said.
After the game Wayne State coach Bill Wilkinson jokingly said, “Where’s the beer?” before starting his press conference.
Wilkinson said his team could learn a lot from the loss.
“We played well after the first period. Then we put our heads in the sand and watched Ohio State play,” Wilkinson said.
Wayne State stayed competitive in the early parts of the game. The Warriors only trailed 1-0 after the first period.
However, the Buckeyes were just too talented and too physical for Wayne State to keep up. OSU scored three goals in the second period, and blew the game wide open with five goals in the third. The performance of OSU freshman forward JB Bittner was a huge positive.
Bittner came into the game only scoring one goal on the year, and managed to score two goals in one night.
Freshman forward John Toffey found the net for his first career goal as a Buckeye, which ended the scoring at 9-0.
Saturday night was a much different story.
Wayne State gave the Bucks all they could handle, but fell short to OSU, 3-2.
OSU forward Paul Caponigri’s two power play goals proved to be the difference.
OSU was also helped out by yet another outstanding performance for the second night in a row from Betz in goal. Betz stopped 31 out of the 33 shots he faced.
The Buckeyes were outshot 33-18 and scored two goals with a one man advantage on both of their power plays. Unlike the Buckeyes, the Warriors didn’t take advantage of their opportunities, only converting 1-of-5 power plays.
One huge positive to come out of the weekend, besides the two victories was the increased playing time many of the reserves and backups were able to get this weekend, especially Friday night.
“We are going to need people to step up because we are going to lose Umberger and Steckel,” said Markell.
Markell was talking about the fact that OSU will lose sophomores Dave Steckel and R.J. Umberger during a portion of the year because of Junior Olympic play.
OSU now stands with a record of 5-2-1 overall and 3-2-1 in the CCHA, while the Warriors fell to 3-5-0 and 0-2-0 in the CCHA.
The Bucks will look to stay on a roll this weekend with a series against Northern Michigan The puck hits the ice Friday at 7:35 p.m. at the Schottenstein Center.
