(Photo: Gabrielle Mercer / WCSN)
Arizona State hockey will face off against the Quinnipiac Bobcats on Friday and Saturday in the middle series of a three-week home stand.
The Sun Devils have had a run-in with the Bobcats in each year of its young program. The last time the two played was at Gila River Arena last season in which the Sun Devils pounced on the Bobcats in a 4-2 victory.
ASU head coach Greg Powers claimed it was his team’s biggest win at the time.
ASU is riding the wave of success they found in the new year with pulling a victorious weekend in Las Vegas and a shutout against UMass-Lowell last Saturday while Quinnipiac will enter the series with a 2-2-1 record since the start of January.
“It gets to a point where we just have to focus on us and competing the way we have to compete against anybody to be successful,” Powers said. “Every team in Division-I hockey is really good and if you don’t show up, if you don’t put in a really honest effort forward, you’re not going to best anybody let alone a really good program like Quinnipiac.”
The Sun Devils have a history of testing the waters on Friday and coming out stronger Saturday.
In order to overcome that, Powers said the team needs to play with the same anger on Friday that they do on Saturday.
“It’s something our leaders are really focusing on and trying to hone in and get in our locker room ready to play,” he said. “Again, we were great against Northern Michigan on Friday and we came out really well against Lowell on this Friday, We played a really good, hard first period. It just didn’t sustain itself and that team outworked us over the course of 60 minutes.”
Friday’s game will be at Oceanside Ice Arena while Saturday’s will be at Gila River Arena in Glendale.
