One hockey team in Columbus continues to win, and it is not the National Hockey League Blue Jackets.
The Ohio State men’s hockey team is unbeaten in its last seven games.
“We have to stay consistent with the way we have been playing, and I don’t think we’re looking to change anything,” said OSU men’s hockey coach John Markell.
In fact, the Buckeyes last lost a game on Nov. 23 to CCHA leader Ferris State. Since that game, the Buckeyes have been dominating. Center R.J. Umberger has been unstoppable, winning CCHA Player of the Week three times in a row.
The streak started as the Buckeyes took two wins from in-state rival Miami as classes were ending autumn quarter.
Next came the University of Nebraska at Omaha and two victories.
After that was a trip to the Everblades College Classic in Florida.
OSU’s first opponent in the tourney was the University of Massachusetts. The Buckeyes battled hard but could only muster a tie, even with Umberger scoring his 100th career point as a Buckeye in the game.
“It felt real good” (to score the point),” Umberger said. “It was a goal of mine before coming into the season to get that.”
Salt was added to the wound as the Buckeyes lost the best-of-five shootout to the Minutemen. With that, the Buckeyes also lost a chance at meeting Maine in the finals.
One positive aspect of the UMass game was the Buckeyes had another chance to play Cornell, a team which defeated OSU earlier in the season. Cornell, the No. 3 ranked team in the country at the time, could not withstand the Buckeyes’ pressure this time as the team shut the Big Red out 1-0. OSU did it even with freshman Dave Caruso between the pipes at goalie. Caruso earned his third victory with the shutout.
“It was definitely good to get them back for what they did to us earlier, and to show everybody we can play with the higher ranked teams, and we proved that,” Caruso said.
Caruso earned CCHA Rookie of the Week honors with his performance.
On Friday, while many fans were in Tempe to cheer on the football team, the hockey team continued its winning streak by beating Princeton 4-1 in Mellon Arena, home of the NHL’s Pittsburgh Penguins. With that win, the Buckeyes improved to 14-4-2, and stand second in the CCHA with a mark of 9-2-1.
The No. 9 Buckeyes face off against the Findlay Oilers tonight at 7:05 in the Schottenstein Center.
Findlay is coming off a loss Western Michigan and have a record of 8-8-1. Led by coach Craig Barnett, Findlay has a tough task ahead. OSU and Findlay have only met one time, a 10-0 Buckeye romp in November 2000.
“We want to continue to have good goaltending,” Markell said. “I think we have to pick up our goal scoring, and I think we’re playing good defense.”
The OSU defense has given up one or fewer goals in four of its last five games, and Mike Betz leads the CCHA in goaltending, giving up 2.10 goals per game.
“We have to come out and play our game, and quite honestly the only way they are going to beat us, is if we beat ourselves,” Betz said.
