IU meets, sweeps the Spartans at home

It took 11 games over a three-month span for the IU hockey team to register its first win in the Greater Midwest Hockey League.\nIt took only one day for the team to get its second.\nIU’s victory not only took the pressure off the team to get its first win, but also gave IU (12-9-4, 2-6-4 GMHL) bragging rights against the defending American Collegiate Hockey Association Division II national champions, the Michigan State Spartans.\nIU completed a third period comeback to hold on to a 7-6 win Friday night. The team carried that momentum into a 5-4 victory the following afternoon to complete the weekend sweep of the Spartans.\nFriday, IU did something it struggled to do during its midseason slump – hold onto a third period lead. After scoring a late second period goal to narrow Michigan State’s lead to 4-3, IU nailed three early third period goals to take a 6-4 lead.\nMichigan State (13-14-1) kept it close with two goals, but IU matched each goal to hold its lead. \nTwo weeks ago, IU lost its 5-4 lead to Ohio State with a late third period goal and only managed a tie. On Sunday, IU coach Al Karlander said he was impressed with his team’s ability to close out the game.\n“The third period was not only huge in that we won it and came back after being down 4-2,” Karlander said, “but our third periods have not been our best this year and so I guess against the team that’s national champs right now ... gave us just a lot of real positive energy.”\nIU’s first two goals of the game came on power play opportunities. Junior forward Daniel Keeney scored in the first period to tie the game at one, and junior forward Mike Vaughan followed with a goal early in the second frame to give his team a 2-1 lead.\nSaturday marked improvement for another aspect of IU’s game – penalty killing. IU players were charged with 20 penalty minutes, compared to Michigan State’s six.\n“We took some undisciplined penalties,” Karlander said. “Of course you always think the referee is only looking one way, but we had a lot of penalty killing to do.”\nFor most of the game, IU was able to weather the penalties. In fact, in the first period, senior forward Dan Karlander scored a shorthanded goal to give IU a 2-0 lead.\nAs the game’s end drew closer, however, Michigan State started taking advantage of IU’s penalties. The Spartans scored a power-play goal with 7:26 remaining and added another power-play goal with 1:00 remaining to give IU a scare. \nGoalie Logan Tucker set the tone for IU on Saturday. He held a shutout through the first period and a half, allowing his team to grab an early 3-0 lead.\n“Michigan State’s a good club,” Tucker said. “You go out there, you play as best as you can, you hope to get a shutout and ... it doesn’t always happen, but we played well as a team, and got the W.”\nDan Karlander added the other three goals for his second hat trick in three games. The team has now strung together four wins in a row, including two non-league games against Central Michigan last week.\n“To come off that disappointing weekend (at Ohio State) and have four straight wins going up against Michigan next is huge,” Karlander said. “And hopefully we can keep this momentum rolling up through the postseason.”\nThe team faces Michigan in a home weekend series this Friday and Saturday.