(Photo: Susan Wong/WCSN)
The road to the NCAA Tournament is nearing its finish line with under one month to play in the regular season for No. 11 Arizona State.
Coming off a home sweep over Robert Morris University, the Sun Devils travel east to face Holy Cross on Friday night at Hart Center in Worcester, Mass. and Bentley University on Saturday night at Bentley Arena in Waltham, Mass.
For the first time this season, the Sun Devils tackle two opponents in a weekend on the road.
Despite playing in two different arenas on back-to-back nights, head coach Greg Powers addressed that the team’s preparation plan does not change.
“It’s the same as always,” Powers said. “Obviously, a different opponent on two different nights, so we have to prepare this week as a staff for two different opponents, which is rare for us, but we’re up to the task and we feel that we have a good plan going into both nights. At the end of the day, our guys just have to keep playing to our ability and focus on us. That’s the main message this week. Focus on our game, and we’ll be fine.”
As the Sun Devils have played every weekend since the end of the November, the team has dealt with a couple bumps and bruises during the stretch recently.
Junior defenseman Jacob Wilson and sophomore Demetrios Koumontzis will be out this weekend. Wilson and Koumontzis have been absent from the lineup the last four games due to injury.
The Sun Devils and Crusaders cross paths for the second time. ASU took the first matchup during the 2017-2018 with a 3-1 win and a 3-3 tie.
Then-freshman forward Johnny Walker netted a pair of goals during the road series. Two years later, Walker, who leads the Sun Devils with 17 goals and 33 points, looks to maintain his steady mental approach.
“I try to keep the same focus and same mentality every single weekend,” Walker said. “It’s more magnified by the outside looking in. They need these ones, but at the end of the day, we need every game. As an independent team, it’s not easy. These games are just important as the ones in October were.”
Holy Cross enters Friday’s contest with a 9-13-5 record. The Crusaders got off to a slow start to begin the season, but a 6-1-1 record in the month of January has propelled them to eighth in the Atlantic Hockey standings.
HC has struggled to find the back of the net, averaging 2.59 goals per game, which ranks 38th out of 60 Division I teams. Senior forward Neil Robinson leads the Crusaders with 20 points in 26 games, including a goal and three assists in his last four games.
Freshman goaltender Matt Radomsky has taken the bulk of the work in the crease with a 2.80 GAA and .901 save percentage in 24 starts.
The Crusaders rank 46th overall on the power play, converting 15.9% of the time on the man-advantage. HC’s penalty kill is slightly better at 33rd in the country, successfully fending off 80.4% of opponents’ power plays.
Less than 24 hours later, the Sun Devils face Bentley for the first time in program history.
Bentley holds a 12-13-3 record, riding a four-game winning streak into the weekend. Collecting sweeps over Mercyhurst and Niagara, the Falcons have climbed to fifth in the Atlantic Hockey standings with 10 conference victories.
BU has scored 77 goals, which rank 25th among the 60 NCAA Division I teams. Sophomore forward Jakov Navok, an Ottawa Senators draft pick, leads the Falcons with 15 goals and 29 points in 28 games. Navok has a goal and five helpers during a three-game point streak.
Junior forward Luke Santerno has points in nine of his last 10 games (four goals, eight assists). Senior defenseman Connor Brassard leads Bentley’s blue-liners with four goals and ten assists.
In between the pipes, the Falcons have primarily split time between sophomore Fraser Kirk and senior Aidan Pelino. While Kirk owns a 7-3-1 record with a 2.32 GAA and a .904 save percentage, Pelino supports a 5-8-2 record with a 3.06 GAA and a .879 save percentage.
The Falcons have connected 17.5% on the powerplay, which ranks 38th overall. Despite killing six of their last seven penalties, BU’s penalty kill sits at 53rd with a 76.6% clip.
Although the Sun Devils face two programs in the bottom quarter of the PairWise Rankings, the team knows that there’s no slowing down heading to the finish line.
“Every game is important,” Powers said. “At this point, we’re in a favorable position. We are where we want to be. We’ve done a good job getting ourselves to this point. Now, we have to finish the job. If we just focus on and take care of what we can control, we are going to end up where we need to be.”
