Michigan State University Athletics
Michigan State University
Northern Michigan
Hockey Falls To Northern Michigan, 4-2
2/22/2003 12:00:00 AM | Men's Ice Hockey
Feb. 22, 2003
EAST LANSING, Mich. - Despite out shooting Northern Michigan 42-15, Michigan State stumbled on its climb up the CCHA standings dropping a 4-2 decision on Saturday (Feb. 22) at Munn Ice Arena in East Lansing, Mich.
The big difference in the game was the play of NMU netminder Craig Kowalski, who stopped 40-of-42 shots, en route to No. 1 star of the game honors.
"Craig (Kowalski) played outstanding," said MSU head coach Rick Comley. "NMU did what they had to do to win. It was not a great effort on our part, but not a good effort either. We took penalties at the wring time and that certainly impacted our game. We didn't have enough players that could make a difference out there tonight."
NMU's top line of Mike Stutzel, Dirk Southern and Chris Gobert put together a strong shift early and gave the Wildcats' on top 1-0 lead at 3:29 of the first stanza. Stutzel took a feed from Gobert between the face-off circles and fired a wrist-shot over the glove of sophomore netminder Matt Migliaccio.
At 12:09 of the first period, one of the nation's hottest players, John-Michael Liles, got the equalizer with the help of a screen by freshman Nenad Gajic. After weaving through the Wildcat defense, senior Troy Ferguson dumped the puck off to Liles at the top of the left face-off circle where the All-American ripped the puck into the top left corner of the goal for his 15th marker of the season. The assist by Ferguson was his first point since a 6-1 loss at Lake Superior State on Jan. 3.
The Spartans notched a back-breaker with just 10 seconds left in the first to go ahead 2-1 after one period of hockey. Sophomore Brock Radunske made another spectacular play to set up his linemate Lee Falardeau for the second consecutive night. Radunske absorbed a fierce check against the boards before he hit a wide-open Falardeau in front of the NMU netminder. Kowalski got a piece of Falardeau's wrister, but it proved to be too much to handle as the puck trickled between his legs and over the goal line.
The Wildcats capitalized on a Migliaccio delay of game penalty when Gobert notched a power play goal at 3:59 of the second stanza. Standing on the edge of the goal crease, Gobert took a cross-ice pass from Bryce Cockburn and beat Migliaccio glove side tying the game 2-2.
NMU reclaimed the lead at the 9:30 mark of the second when Southern's shot found its way through a group of Spartan and Wildcat players and into the net making it a 3-2 affair after two periods.
The Wildcats picked up where they left off early in the third stanza when Cockburn rocketed a wrist-shot just under the cross bar putting his team ahead 4-2 at the 1:08 mark. The goal came on just the 10th shot of the night by NMU.
Spartan senior captain Brad Fast said his team was run down, and the effort was not present in tonight's game.
"We put a lot of pucks toward the net and NMU blocked a lot (of those shots)," said Fast. "I don't think we capitalized on our chances. As tough as it is right now, we're just looking forward to next weekend."
Michigan State (18-12-2 overall, 14-9-1 CCHA) faces arch-rival Michigan next weekend (Feb. 28-March 1) as the teams meet for the second time in a three-week time span. On Friday (Feb. 28), the teams will meet in Ann Arbor at Yost, while on Saturday (March 1) the game moves to Joe Louis Arena in Detroit.
