Sun Devils Fall to RIT 5-1, Unable to Get Back to Winning Ways

(Photo Courtesy – Hailey Rogalski)

“When things aren’t going your way, that’s what it looks like,” head coach Greg Powers reiterated more than once after the team’s second loss in a row, this time against RIT.

After being shutout in the second game against Minnesota State 5-0, game one against RIT looked to be headed in the same direction — and for the most part, it was, minus a shutout. Arizona State found the back on the net late in the third to make the score 5-1 but that was all she wrote for the Sun Devil offense.

Needing something to bounce back from being swept, the Sun Devils were unable to provide any remedy or solution to the problem. For the second game in a row, they couldn’t get the first goal of the game and then couldn’t score the second, third, fourth, or fifth.

In under a period and a half, the Sun Devils gave up three goals on 12 shots resulting in sophomore goaltender TJ Semptimphelter getting pulled for only the second time this season.

“He’s just not getting the bounce,” Powers said in reference to Semptimphelter being pulled during the second period.

While it seemed to feel like the Tiger’s scoring never stopped, the first goal didn’t come until late in the first period from freshman forward Tyler Mahan. Then to end the period adding insult to injury junior forward Matthew Kopperud took a cross-checking penalty. That penalty resulted in a power-play goal for the Tigers to open the second.

After that, the floodgates opened, and RIT was able to hammer home three more goals.

“It’s tough, when four goals bounce in off your own players it’s tough, it’s an energy suck, and it’s tough to fight through that…. you can’t make it up. When things aren’t going your way, this is what it looks like, this is what it looks like. This is what a slump looks like, this is what a team struggling to score and all that puck luck going the other team’s way.”

Puck luck can be a funny thing, when you have it, it’s amazing but when you don’t it can be a struggle and takes everyone to get it back.

“It’s on us, it’s on us, it’s on our players, it’s on our staff, it’s on us to make sure that this is rock bottom, and we have to earn our puck luck.”

Puck luck and just luck, in general, are going to be two things that ASU will need to break out of their slump. ASU had cut the lead to 4-1 midway through the third period, but as luck would have it, RIT had “scored” just before ASU netted a goal of their own, but no one knew it yet.

Undenounced to anyone at the time the Tigers had scored during one of their offensive chances, the goal hadn’t been called on the ice so play continued. The Sun Devils were able to take the puck the other way and found the back of the net themselves. However, since the whistle blew for the goal, the Tigers were able to challenge the ruling on the ice that the puck had not crossed the goal line – their own goal line earlier in the play.

After reviewing the goal, the referees deemed that RIT had scored thus negating the ASU goal.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen the two-goal swing that happened. It was really close like it was really, really close, I thought that it wasn’t conclusive enough to overturn it…but again when things aren’t going your way, that’s what it looks like.”

Attention now must be turned to game two with hopes of not getting swept in back-to-back weekends.

“Obviously you don’t want to go back-to-back weekends being swept,” fifth-year forward Demetrios Koumontzis said. “Right now, tomorrow we have to come back and somehow get a win, it’s part of the season where it’s kinda the last chance to get things rolling.”

There’s not much strategy that coach Powers thinks needs to be changed around its just, “a lot of puck luck and confidence.”

“We had a couple of really good grade A’s in the first, guys are hanging onto it too long you know. We keep missing the net, trying to make it perfect.”

The Sun Devils will get one more chance for redemption with RIT to right the ship, puck drop is set for 4 p.m. MST Saturday, January 20.