The No. 17 Arizona hockey team (5-6-0) lost 7-1 to No. 1 ASU (12-0-0) on Friday night, extending its winless streak against the Sun Devils to 27 games.
The arch rivals wrap up the series Saturday night at 7:30 p.m. at the Tucson Convention Center.
“It’s tough playing against those guys and when we make mistakes the mistakes we made, they’re going to capitalize on them,” head coach Sean Hogan said.
ASU opened the scoring with 5:35 left in the first period. The Sun Devils made UA pay for losing the puck right in front of the goal and then scored with 3:06 left in the first to lead 2-0 during the first intermission.
“We need to work on our mentality after we get down a goal, we get pretty deflated, we feel it,” Hogan said.
During the second period, the game got ugly as ASU added three more and Sun Devil defenseman Jordan Young left the game and had to be fitted with a neck brace by paramedics.
UA got on the board with a goal with 16:35 left by freshman forward Brennen Parker, assisted by senior forward Brian Slugocki and senior defenseman Nick Stolz.
“Today we didn’t have the pucks bounce the way we wanted them to,” junior goalie Steve Sisler said. “It’s upsetting, everyone was really pumped up about the game and we know we can play with that team but we made a couple of mistakes in our defensive zone.”
About four minutes later ASU scored right after Arizona killed a penalty. Then with 5:05 left ASU scored a four on four goal and with 1:34 left, they scored on a power play.
“They’re really good at scoring and really good at capitalizing on other team’s mistakes,” Sisler said.
In the third period, ASU scored after about five minutes and then at 10:53 left on a power play that was almost over.
The Wildcats opened the first Sun Devil series at ASU in September with an 11-3 loss and then improved in the second game, falling 4-1.
“I think they got some bounces, some of those goals were a little bit shaky,” Hogan said.
ASU had seven power plays, while UA only had three.
The game was tied for the first 15 minutes before the Sun Devil onslaught began.
“ASU’s a team that we know they we can beat and it would be really awesome to get a win against them,” Sisler said. “It’s just important to keep your confidence and don’t let games like this put you down or anything.”
