IU and Ferris State split weekend pair

The Hoosiers completed one of their two goals this weekend.

The first was to get their first conference win of the season. They did that Friday. Their second was to keep their home winning streak alive. That objective died Saturday afternoon.

The Hoosiers dominated the Ferris State Bulldogs in Friday’s match at Frank Southern Ice Arena.The teams scored five goals in the first six minutes, four of them by IU.

Ferris State battled back, but it wasn’t enough to keep the Hoosiers from getting their first Great Midwest Hockey League victory, winning 8-6.

“We came out flying,” senior Dan Keeney said. “We had three lines in a row that just played awesome.”

The team had seven power plays, which helped the team’s scoring, Keeney said.
“Whenever you get odd-man opportunities, a lot of goals are going to get scored,” he said.

Sophomore KC Madock said he was pleased with the rapid scoring and believed it was due in part to IU basketball coach Tom Crean’s pep talk to the team Friday night before he dropped the ceremonial first puck of the game.

“I’d rather play that kind of hockey than wait till the third period for our first goal,” he said. “We came out with a lot of emotion. Coach Crean talked to us before the game. I think that helped a lot; he’s a great speaker.”

Before Friday’s win, IU had an 0-4 conference record. Keeney said he knew the team needed the win.

“It’s nice to have that behind us,” he said. “It was kind of hanging over our head being 0-4. It’s nice to just have it out of our way.”

Sophomore Chris Benz said he was excited about Friday’s offensive effort.

“We came off with a lot of energy,” he said. “Putting four goals up in four minutes on a good team is really good for us. It shows we have offensive firepower we haven’t showed in the past week.”

IU coach Tom Orr said he didn’t want to mess with his team’s rhythm.

“As a coach, we were scoring so many goals we just sat back and thought, ‘I don’t want to do anything to mess this up,’” he said. “We were a little excited on offense, and a consequence of that was we neglected our defense a little bit.”

In Saturday’s game, the Bulldogs took an early lead, scoring on IU with their first shot just seconds into the game, and while it kept the game close for most of the game, IU could never recover. Ferris State won 4-2 – IU’s first home loss since January.

“I thought we fought really hard,” senior Mike Vaughan said. “We had a couple of breaks that didn’t really go our way. We just didn’t get the breaks that we needed.”

Vaughan said he believes the team struggled mentally as well.

“We had a couple of mental breakdowns,” he said. “They scored a late goal on us, and it kind of took the wind out of our sails.”

Benz said the officiating was an issue.

“I know personally I had two clean hits, and I wound up sitting in the box with two penalties,” he said. “It’s frustrating to have a ref like that. That kind of takes away part of the game.”

Orr said he believed his team outplayed Ferris State, but it didn’t show up statistically for the now 9-5, 1-5 Hoosiers.

“We just had some of that bad luck again,” he said. “It was the type of effort we needed to get the win. It just didn’t work out on the scoreboard.”