Friday Night Ice

In the biggest college game of the evening, #1 Miami continued their hot start defeating #4 Michigan 3-1 in front of an overflow crowd of 6,817 at venerable Yost Ice Arena in Ann Arbor, Mich.

Miami jumped on the Wolverines early and never looked back getting two goals from senior forward Jarod Palmer (Fridley, Minn.) and taking a 2-0 lead before 10 minutes had elapsed in the first period.

Michigan would dominate the second period, scoring once, but sophomore goaltender Cody Reichard (Celina, Ohio) was outstanding stopping a penalty shot and several good Wolverine chances. Michigan was aided by four RedHawk penalties which enabled them to get many of their chances. However, Reichard made 13 of his 27 saves in the period as Miami weathered the storm and carried a 2-1 lead into the final stanza. In getting the win, Reichard remained unbeaten improving to 6-0-1 and lowering his goals against average to a stellar 1.67.

In the third, Miami completely dominated the tempo and open ice, challenging every loose puck and winning the puck possession battle. The fourth line came through with a nice goal when senior forward Brandon Smith (Pepper Pike, Ohio) took a nifty feed from senior Dane Hetland (Bridgeville, Penn.) and surprised Michigan netminder Bryan Hogan with a quick shot that beat the junior through his pads. The play began when sophomore defenseman Cameron Schilling (Carmel, Ind.) made an aggressive move at the blueline by streaking in from his left point to keep the puck in the zone down beneath the face-off dot. Schilling knocked the puck away from a Wolverine forward to Hetland who made a pretty stickhandling move through a Michigan defender's legs and found Smith open heading toward the net.

The two goal lead was all Miami needed as they completely shut down the speed and cross-ice passing that Michigan has so effectively utilized over the years against the RedHawks. With the win, Miami improves to an impressive 7-1-1 (4-1 CCHA) while Michigan falls to 4-3 (2-1).

Tomorrow night's series finale will be played at 7:35pm from Ann Arbor and can be seen around the great state of Ohio on ONN and on Comcast in SE Michigan.


The state's other two teams did not fare as well as the RedHawks.

• From Columbus, Ohio - The Ohio State Buckeyes' Friday night struggles continued as OSU dropped a 1-0 decision to slow-starting Northern Michigan. The Wildcats entered tonight's game just 1-4-1 overall. But, Northern Michigan took an early lead by scoring the game's only goal just 22 seconds into the game and it held up as surprising Reid Ellingson got the shutout in net for NMU.
  
• With the win, NMU improves to 2-4-1 (1-2 CCHA) and the Buckeyes fall to 2-6-1 (1-3-1-1).
• The series finale is tomorrow night at 7:05pm from Schottenstein Center.

• From Big Rapids, Mich. - The lowly Bowling Green Falcons remained winless on the season dropping a lopsided 5-1 decision to Bob Daniels' Ferris State Bulldogs.
• The Falcons fell to 0-6-1 (0-2-1-1 CCHA) and the Bulldogs improved their record to 4-2 (1-2) on the young season.