Georgia hockey crashes out of nationals after 3-2 loss to Tampa | Georgia Sports

The University of Tampa played villain to the Ice Dawgs’ trophy hopes once again, as they sent Georgia packing with a 3-2 defeat in the final pool play game of the AAU Nationals tournament. The loss comes just four weeks after Tampa beat Georgia 7-1 in the D1 championship, denying the Ice Dawgs another trophy.

The referees only called two penalties all game, which led to a physical, defensive chess match between the two teams. From the start of the game, it was clear that it would be a high-intensity battle of Tampa’s speed versus Georgia’s structured approach.

“They’ve got some really fast guys, and we learned from playing them in the past a couple adjustments we needed to make, and all the adjustments worked,” head coach John Camp said. “It just happened to be that they got the puck in the net, it wasn’t even really off of mistakes, it was just talent on their side.”

Tension and fervor built following a Georgia goal early in the third period that tied the game at two apiece. As regulation time dwindled, the players put their bodies on the line for every loose puck.

With under six minutes to go, the Georgia players did just that. Throwing their bodies in front of two consecutive Tampa shots, the puck fell into the stick of the Spartans’ top goal-scorer, sophomore Daniel Griffin. Griffin turned and fired from a rather tight angle, but he skillfully placed his shot past Testino’s glove and into the roof of the net to give Tampa a 3-2 lead, which they held onto for the remainder of the game.

Tampa broke the deadlock seven minutes into the game, and it took a hard-nosed effort to accomplish that. Forward Cole Vallese gathered the puck in front of the Georgia net, avoided two sprawling challenges from Ice Dawg defenders and played a precise pass in front to forward Jack Manware for the tap-in goal.

Following the opening goal, the game saw a 24-minute scoring drought, although Tampa dominated possession for the majority of that time. Georgia struggled to get out of their own defensive zone for the first half of the second period, but an outlet pass to forward Declan Conway helped the Ice Dawgs finally break through.

Conway skated around Spartan defender William Fortescue and fired a shot that missed wide left of the net, but he collected his rebound off the boards. Conway then circled the net and connected with…