IU men's hockey goes 0-2 against Illinois for weekend

In a two-game series against No. 2 Illinois, IU saw its best competition this season, and for possibly the rest of the year.

The Hoosiers (2-6) lost both games this weekend in contests ending 1-2 Friday and 0-3 Saturday.  

Illinois has consistently been one of the American Collegiate Hockey Association’s top Division I teams. With this being the Hoosiers’ inaugural season as a D-I program, they were eager to compete with a renowned powerhouse.  

After almost getting a quick goal in the first 15 seconds on Saturday, IU took the Illini to the boards.

The team’s big hits in the first period were consistent for the rest of the game.  

Junior forward Chris Benz led the Hoosiers in an aggressive attack but couldn’t seem to take advantage of opportunities that presented themselves.  

“We need to get more traffic in front of the net, and we need more shots on net then we did,” he said. “Our defense did well. It was our offense that was lacking.”

Illinois scored its first goal about four minutes into the game, putting the Hoosiers down 0-1.

The second period gave the Hoosiers big opportunities with two power plays, but the team could not capitalize against Illinois’ relentless defensive.  

Illinois scored with 19.1 seconds left in the second period to put them up 0-2 on IU.

Junior goalie Danny Ivory gave the Hoosiers the chance they needed to beat one of the top teams in the country.  

Ivory said he thought the team was looking good when it came to five-on-five exchanges, but the power plays were what killed the team.  

“It’s clear we’re getting outworked on the power plays,” he said. “It was a pretty good effort, but we just got to start burying pucks.”

Illinois scored its final goal with less than 35 seconds remaining in the third period.  

Although the team did not end the weekend with any victories, club coach Tom Orr took several positives from the games.

He said he knows they can learn from the contests.  

“It’s better to play super-talented teams in the beginning,” Orr said. “Even if we lose, we know it will help us become better.”