(Photo: Allyson Cummings/WCSN)
One night after unseating No. 1 Minot State, the Arizona State hockey team welcomed National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA) Williston State for a two-game series. The soon-to-be top-ranked Sun Devils took the first game over the Tetons by a score of 4-0.
Arizona State came out of the gate slowly in the first period, letting a fast and physical Williston offense skate back and forth with them for most of the frame. The Sun Devils struck first on the power play at 12:54 in the period. ACHA leading scorer Kale Dolinski took a pass from Sean Murphy to Tetons netminder Tyler Ampe’s left, and then hit Ryan Ostertag on the tape across the slot for the easy goal.
The second period was less exciting than the first, but it saw the Sun Devils score once more on the power play. Five minutes in to the period, Eric Rivard fired a shot on Ampe that the goalie saved to his right. Drew Newmeyer crept in and cleaned up an easy rebound to make the score 2-0. Later in the period, Sean Murphy took a pass from Chris Burkemper, patiently waited as Ampe slid across his crease, toe-dragged and finished to put Arizona State up by three.
Nothing was working on the power play last night, but tonight was a different story.
“The goal is to stay disciplined and make teams pay when they get stupid by putting us on the power play,” coach Greg Powers said. “And tonight, we did that.”
Liam Norris tacked on one more goal for the Sun Devils in the opening minute of a third period that saw the teams combine for 95 penalty minutes. The referees kept it original too, dishing out two fighting ejections, four ten-minute misconducts, a five-minute major and three double-minors. Both Brian McGinty and Sean Ritchie dropped the gloves with 5:29 left in the game after Williston State’s Karson Kuntz elbowed Eric Rivard into the boards. McGinty and Kuntz scrapped, earning the fighting ejections.
Among the Sun Devils spotted in suits instead of sweaters tonight were captain Colin Hekle, top defensive tandem Jordan Young and Alex Temby and goaltender Robert Levin. Without Hekle in the lineup, coach Powers used McGinty at center between Ryan Ostertag and Faiz Khan. The line worked well enough together, and occasionally Powers would switch Khan with Zachary Holstrom, his offensive flex player of the night.
“It’s not the kind of game we want to play, but it was reactionary to the way that team played,” Powers said.
One Sun Devil that stepped up tonight was Brett Prechel. With the exception of a crosschecking penalty in the third, Prechel played almost perfectly. The senior saw serious special teams minutes since Young and Temby had the night off, and he was commanding. He logged time as the lone first-unit power play defenseman and patrolled the front of the net with defensive partner Jarrod Levos on the first-unit penalty kill. Prechel was particularly great at clearing Tetons forwards out of goalie Joe D’Elia’s way, something Arizona State collectively struggles to do. Prechel also registered an assist on Norris’ goal in the third period.
Arizona State faces Williston State again tomorrow at 7:30pm at Oceanside Ice Arena.
