Club takes 2 in final home games

Aggressive offense, hard-hitting defense and fighting. This weekend's double header and final home contests for the IU hockey team had everything fans love about hockey, as the Hoosiers took two games from conference rival Bowling Green.\nIU (15-12-4-1) needed extra time in downing the Falcons Friday night, winning 5-4 in overtime, before blowing Bowling Green out of Frank Southern Arena Saturday afternoon in a 10-1 rout.\nThe final home games of the season and the last games in Bloomington for four Big Red seniors.\nAfter squeaking out a victory Friday night, the Hoosiers took control early in Saturday's contest and never let up. An IU offensive onslaught kept the pressure on the Falcons while a dominating performance from senior goalie Josh Block shut out Bowling Green in the final two periods.\nWith 16:54 left to play in the second, sophomore forward Reed Schafer slammed home a goal to put the Hoosiers up 3-1. From there, IU never looked back, getting into one of its trademark hot streaks as it hung seven more unanswered goals to put Bowling Green away.\n"It was important for us to show we were that much better than Bowling Green," Schafer said. "We were fighting for position in the standings all year with them."\nOffense seemed to come from everywhere in the Hoosiers' total team effort. Senior Clint Heiber was a near-miss away from a hat trick in his final home game. The Greenwood, Ind., native maneuvered through three Falcon defenders before faking out the keeper and sending his second goal of the night through the five-hole. \n "We're just on a roll right now," sophomore John Laughner said. "We played hard in a tough come-from-behind win and then ran it out on them 10-1 gives us a great feeling going into Nationals. We're just playing for each other right now and playing as a team, and it's made all the difference."\nBut the excitement wasn't limited to IU scoring goal after goal. A skirmish between players and fans broke out behind the benches.\nMidway through the third period, tempers flared as a pair of skaters traded words in front of the Bowling Green bench. Before the rest of the team had a chance to react, the gloves were off, and referees skated in to break up the fight. As the crowd surrounded the boards to cheer on the heavyweight fight, the door to the rink fell open and the melee moved outside the rink.\nWith play stopped for several minutes to break up the fight within a fight, police arrived on the scene to prevent things from getting further out of hand. No arrests were made before four Bowling Green players were ejected and one Hoosier, freshman defender Richard Young, were sent to the locker room to cool off.\n-- Contact staff writer Jeff Fuldauer at jfuldaue@indiana.edu.