(Photo Courtesy: Billy Wuneburger):
TEMPE – Arizona State club women’s hockey lost 2-1 to the No. 6 ranked Michigan Wolverines on Sunday.
The first period started off as a back-and-forth battle between the forwards and the goaltenders. Sophomore Sun Devils goaltender Carsyn Hellman and sophomore Wolverines goaltender Sandrine Ponnath made some decent saves even with ASU outshooting the Wolverines. Freshman forward Julia Lindahl, who led Michigan’s scoring efforts, was determined to continue her strong play from Saturday though as she broke free from the ASU defense. Lindahl sped to the front of the net and jammed a backhander in past Hellman to give the Wolverines the lead. The first lead they’ve had all series.
Staying out of the box continued to be an issue during the game for ASU as the team took two penalties, the latter of which proved to be a tragic ending to the period for ASU. Sophomore defenseman Katherine German took a shot from the faceoff circle that got past Hellman with three seconds left in the period. That would do it for the period for ASU. Even though trailing 2-0, ASU outshot the Wolverines 13 to nine, a lone bright spot it seemed in the game.
“You can’t score if you’re constantly killing [penalties],” senior forward and Sun Devils captain Andi Main said.
“It was a rough start, going down two goals,” sophomore forward Elle McKenna said.
McKenna was involved in some physical plays throughout the first period including one that ended up with a Michigan player breaking their wrist.
“I feel kinda bad. I didn’t mean to hurt her obviously,” McKenna said.
Most of the second period would be spent in the neutral zone as both teams tried to gain momentum. Junior forward Sydney Paulsen had some good shots but other than that, both teams failed to gain momentum. ASU had 11 shots that period while Michigan gathered seven.
The third period was much of the same as the second. Both teams tried to take possession of the puck and game but Michigan stuck to their strong defensive game and kept the puck out of their zone. However, with seconds remaining, graduate forward Mason Walker was fed the puck from freshman forward Camryn Kozak. Walker put some good dekes and moves on Ponnath before backhanding the puck past her. This would cut Michigan’s lead in half with seconds left in the period.
“Mason does that stuff all the time. He just walks through everybody, does whatever he wants. He does it in practice, he does it in games. It’s cool to see but it’s nothing we haven’t seen before,” McKenna said.
It was too late though for ASU as the clock ran out before they could pounce on this newfound life and Michigan would win the game 2-1. ASU had 37 shots the entire game outshooting the 24 shots from the Wolverines.
“I think this is probably the best hockey we’ve played this season, especially yesterday,” McKenna said. “We were moving our feet, taking passes, we had 45 shots yesterday. We just need to take this momentum and move forward.”
Penalties were a huge issue for the Sun Devils as four of five of the Wolverines’ goals this weekend came on the powerplay.
“We had a great showing in the last bit in the third,” Main said. “Played well in the second but some penalties got us. There’s lots to learn from but we’re obviously very upset over this loss.”
Another factor to the lack of wins from this weekend that the team pointed out was quality shots. ASU outshot Michigan 79 to 51 the whole weekend however a lot of their shots weren’t high-opportunity chances.
“We need to have more quality shots,” McKenna said. “We had tons of shots but more quality opportunities will get us more goals. Obviously, we’ve learned this weekend and in past weekends that penalties aren’t our friends. We need to work on those.”
“We come into the zone with lots of speed, lots of girls crashing the net, and then we just take a shot from not the best angle,” Main said. “I think it’s something we need to work on in the next coming weeks.”
This weekend’s series puts ASU with a record of 9-4-0-1. However, they’re 2-4-0-1 in their last seven games. All four of those losses were against ranked teams.
ASU will continue the homestand back at Oceanside Arena against the unranked University of Colorado (7-6-0-0) on Friday.
