Denver, OSU Freshmen Get First Career Starts in Net
CHN Staff Report
Denver‘s struggling defense/goaltending let up 12 more goals this weekend. but the Pioneers managed a split, of sorts, with a 6-5 overtime win Saturday over Western Michigan in Kalamazoo. Friday, Sam Colangelo had a hat trick in the Broncos’ 7-3 win. In Saturday’s game, Denver gave freshman Paxton Geisel his first career start. Geisel was just brought in a couple weeks ago from the USHL, but hadn’t played yet, as fellow freshman Freddie Halyk continued to struggle. Another freshman, Miko Matikka, scored twice both nights and helped stake Denver to a 4-2 lead. But that lead quickly evaporated and Denver went up 6-5 on Jack Devine’s 15th goal of the season late in the third period, only to have WMU tie it with 14 seconds remaining. Massimo Rizzo won it for Denver in the 3-on-3 OT. “It was not a clean hockey game from any stretch, but we got better in a lot of ways—special teams, I thought out discipline was good,” Denver coach David Carle said. “They’re an excellent hockey team. They make you very uncomfortable. I think they’re top 10 in age in the country and in and height and weight, and they threw it around this weekend. Really proud of our guys’ effort. A lot of guys responded in a bigtime way, and that was good to see. Again, it wasn’t perfect, but we found a way. The young team is growing up and being put in tough environments.”
Colorado College won in overtime for the second straight night in Grand Forks, both by 3-2 scores. But whereas Friday the Tigers rallied from 2-0 down to win in OT on Noah Laba’s goal, on Saturday they got a pair of goals from captain Logan Will to take a 2-1 lead, the latter coming just 10 seconds after UND had tied it. North Dakota tied it again later, but CC’s Gleb Veremyev scored in OT to give his team the road sweep. “I thought our compete level was higher tonight. I know it was a slow start for both teams but I thought we were better as the game went on,” North Dakota coach Brad Berry said. “Scoring is tough to come by when you have a tight-checking team like that. Our top two lines didn’t factor in on even strength scoring this weekend.” … Said CC coach Kris Mayotte, “We knew that our start was going to be everything. We had…
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