After a win over the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, on Friday night, the Icecats had their six-game winning streak snapped as the Rebels handed them their first home loss of the season in a 7-4 defeat on Saturday.
On Friday night, No. 22 Icecats gave up five goals in the second period, but held off UNLV on their way to a 10-6 victory. Senior co-captain forward Jordan Schupan and junior forward Blake Richards both had hat tricks in the win. Freshman forward Andrew Murmes had two goals and four assists while sophomore Jared Lowell had five assists.
Head coach Leo Golembiewski said that shooting is the most erratic thing and can never be over-practiced. However, he’s still happy with the team so far.
“”If we were shooing a little better and a little cleaner in the defensive zone, I think we would be even better off than we are now,”” he said.
He did point out some struggles from the series and said that the lack of mental preparation probably hurt the team the most in the second game.
“”Nobody wanted to skate the puck and we had a hard time getting out of the zone yesterday,”” Golembiewski said after Saturday’s loss. “”We had a hard time down deep in our defensive zone today. It’s disappointing that we didn’t come out and skate with the kind of intensity we needed.””
Another factor that plagued the Wildcats was never having a full team at practice during the week, because of either sickness or injury. Freshman defenseman Michael Basist missed the first game and was only able to play in the first period of the second game because of illness.
The Icecats found themselves in a 3-0 hole on Saturday until Lowell scored a goal with 1:30 left in the first period. UNLV extended its lead to 5-1 with 4:54 left in the second period and then sophomore co-captain forward Brian Slugocki scored with four seconds left.
Slugocki said they just couldn’t click and that the team was still high on its heels from Friday night.
The Rebels went up 6-2 early in the third period but then UA scored back-to-back goals within a minute of each other to narrow the score to 6-4. The Icecats continued to pressure the net but could not score another goal.
Sophomore defenseman Zack Waxenberg scored 10 minutes into the third period in an attempt to start a comeback. He said that the team started slow in both games.
“”I think we were just waiting for it to click but we never really got that spark tonight,”” he said Saturday night. “”I put one in and then we got one really quick after and usually we’re able to build off that, but right after we ran into penalty trouble, and weren’t able to kill it off.””
