The Marquette club hockey team concluded its long homestand with a sweep over the Lewis Flyers. A 5-3 victory Friday night, coupled with a 4-3 win Saturday afternoon gave the Golden Eagles seven victories during the eight game stretch.
Sophomore forward John Stillman was the hero in Friday’s matchup. The two-goal scorer Friday explained despite facing one of their most difficult foes thus far, the team’s preparation for the series set the team up for success.
“We knew we were playing a good Lewis team that came here on a 12-game winning streak,” Stillman said. “We knew they had swept RMU-White, a team we split with so we knew we were going to be in two very competitive games. We skated hard in practice during the week and it translated into our games this weekend with two wins.”
Friday, sophomore Chris Morrow followed last weekend’s hat-trick with another goal, a slap shot from the point, which bounced off the goalie’s glove and in. A Stillman goal two minutes later gave the Golden Eagles a commanding first period lead. But with 14 seconds left, the Flyers used a quick advantage to get a goal, keeping the score at 2-1 after the first period.
The second period returned the two goal lead to Marquette after a beautiful tic-tac-toe play by sophomore Corey Quinn right after a Lewis power-play. Stillman then followed with his second goal on a two-on-one breakaway with senior Tyler Schwichtenberg three minutes later. However, another late goal once again brought Lewis closer with Marquette up 4-2.
An apparent skate malfunction took Stillman off the ice at the start of the third, but was no problem for Marquette. A floating shot from sophomore Colin Telmanik behind the blue line caught the goalie off-guard, giving the Golden Eagles a three goal lead that held for a 5-3 victory.
Marquette followed Friday’s success with two quick goals in the first period of Saturday’s game. A nice shot from the point by senior David Fabris along with a rebound and score from graduate student Ken Yamashita gave Marquette an early 2-0 lead.
A couple early goals from Lewis equalized the score at 2-2 before freshman Brian Kennedy hit a shot from the slot to regain the lead.
Once again, Lewis was able to tie in the third period, off a great shot from the point. But Stillman was able to net the game winning goal, shooting five-hole from the right dot with three minutes left in the game. With a one goal lead, Marquette was able to hold off a number of advantage shots from Lewis to complete the sweep.
With only two more series left in the semester, Stillman believes the team has responded well since its 0-3 October roadtrip.
“I think we have played very well ever since our tough trip to Missouri St., and Arkansas, so I think all we need to do is keep working hard and playing our game,” Stillman said. “If there is one area overall we need to improve on, it is being a little less passive early in the games and start attacking our opponents in the first and second periods rather than just the third period. We do a very good job in the third period when we are down a goal but attacking our opponent early will allow us to not have to go late into games down a goal.”
Following the homestand, the Golden Eagles head back on the road to face Wisconsin-Platteville. It will be a rematch for the Golden Eagles of last year’s MACHA finale, in which the Pioneers defeated Marquette, 4-2 to go to the ACHA playoffs.
