The No. 19 Arizona (2-2-0) hockey team was blown out 11-3 by No. 3 ASU (3-0-0) on Friday and then on Saturday lost 4-1. The losses extend the Wildcats’ winless streak against the Sun Devils to 26 games.
“We played really terribly Friday night — a lot of errors, things like that,” head coach Sean Hogan said. “Saturday we played much better, a much more complete game.”
ASU moved up a spot in the first regular season poll released Friday, and with No. 1 Lindenwood losing to No. 14 Central Oklahoma, the Sun Devils are expected to rise again.
“I think ASU’s the No. 1 team in the country,” Hogan said. “We played them really tight tonight and we’re a team that’s obviously improving every day the more games we play. The more time we get on the ice, the better we’ll get.”
Sophomore forward and NCAA transfer Jason Effertz scored his first goal as a Wildcat to tie the game mid-way through the first period on Saturday. The archrivals were tied during the first intermission.
“It feels better. We’re not happy with a loss, but we played a lot better,” Hogan said.
ASU took a 3-1 lead in the second period and scored a power play goal in the last period.
“What got us in trouble is we took a couple dumb penalties and we’ll deal with that,” Hogan said. “They had basically two power play goals on penalties that probably could have been prevented.”
On Saturday, junior goalie Steven Sisler made his second start of the year and had 28 saves. On Friday, sophomore Bob Schultz made his third start of his career in goal and made 34 saves.
Hogan said the Wildcats have a goalie completion “for sure.”
“Sisler played well [Saturday], made a lot of big saves,” Hogan said. “There’s probably two of them that he wants back, but he made some big saves for us tonight.”
Junior forward Ansel Ivens-Anderson, senior forward Brian Slugocki and sophomore forward Mike Ferreira scored the Wildcat goals in Friday’s game.
ASU scored 11 goals on 45 shots on Friday, while the Wildcats had just 25 shots on goal.
“[Friday night] everybody was really down,” Hogan said. “We had a pretty, I would say loud, video session this morning.”
The Wildcats trailed 2-0 during the first intermission and 6-1 after the second period, and then the wheels fell off.
“Two things: One, we obviously didn’t play well, and I can’t figure out if Arizona State is really that good or we really played that bad,” Hogan said. “Arizona State is definitely what we talked about before, on paper, one of the best teams that I have ever seen at this level. They definitely proved that tonight.”
Ivens-Anderson, who transferred from NCAA Division I New Hampshire, said the Sun Devils would be competitive in the top flight of college hockey.
“I think they could be very competitive with some Division I teams for sure,” Ivens-Anderson said. “You have a Division I transfer from Canisius [Junior forward Brian McGinty], a couple D-III guys. They’re junior players, they can definitely compete.”
The Wildcats’ last win over ASU was in 2009.
