Michigan State University
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Western Michigan
Broncos Blank Spartans, 2-0
2/17/2007 12:00:00 AM | Men's Ice Hockey
Feb. 17, 2007
East Lansing, Mich. - Michigan State could only muster 19 shots on goal against Western Michigan at home on Saturday evening, and Bronco netminder Riley Gill made all 19 to record his fourth shutout of the season to backstop his team to a 2-0 victory over the Spartans at Munn Arena. Patrick Galivan and Jeff LoVecchio each had a goal and an assist for the visitors, who won at Munn Arena for the first time since December 1993. The Spartans are now winless in their last four games and fall to 18-11-3 on the year. Western Michigan wins for the sixth time in its last eight tries and improves to 16-15-1.
As with the previous evening in Kalamazoo, the officials looked to set the tone early with penalty calls. The Spartans killed off their first man-down situation less than two minutes into the game, then had 42-second spurt of 5-on-3 at the 13-minute mark when the Broncos were whistled for consecutive infractions. The Broncos survived the threat, however, and killed off both chances.
The Broncos snuck onto the scoreboard with a power-play tally with just 0.2 seconds remaining in the opening frame. Western Michigan had the puck low, and Jeff LoVecchio collected the puck below the goal line off a rebound to the left of Jeff Lerg. The senior captain threw a pass onto the stick of Pat Galivan at the wide-open left side, who redirected the puck into the back of the net with less than a second remaining to send the visitors into the locker room with a 1-0 lead at the end of the first period.
The Spartans had a great chance to reclaim the goal when Tim Kennedy had a one-on-one in the slot with Western netminder Riley Gill - the freshman made an impressive right leg-pad save on Kennedy's offering to keep MSU off the scoreboard.
Western Michigan got an insurance tally from LoVecchio at 10:57 of the final frame, when he beat Jeff Lerg glove-side off a feed from senior Paul Szczechura and Galivan.
The Spartans continued to have trouble generating scoring chances, but had a chance to climb back in it when the Broncos' Steve Silver was whistled for roughing - despite its top offensive producers on the ice with Lerg pulled in favor of an extra skater, the Spartans could not solve Gill and were forced to swallow the shutout.
Jeff Lerg made 23 saves, while Gill made 19 to record his fourth shutout of the season.
The Spartans enter the final weekend of the season looking to get on track for the postseason, and will skate with Bowling Green in a home-and home. The teams will play Friday evening in Ohio, then the five Spartan seniors will be honored in a pre-game ceremony prior to Saturday's regular-season finale.
Notes: Western Michigan recorded its first victory at Munn Arena since Dec. 11, 1993 - when current Spartan assistant coach Brian Renfrew recorded the shutout for the Broncos .... The Spartans suffered just their second home loss of the season - the first came on Dec. 2 against Ohio State. MSU's record at home is now 11-2-1 ... The Spartans also suffered their first CCHA sweep since Nov. 11-12, 2005 against Nebraska-Omaha. The Spartans finished their regular-season games against their clustermates with a 1-3-0 record against Western Michigan, 1-2-1 against Michigan, and 2-1-1 against Ferris State ... MSU's winless streak has reached four games (0-3-1), the longest of the season, and its three-game losing streak also ties its longest of the season ... The Spartans had not been shut out at home since Jan. 7, 2000 vs. Michigan. It was the second blanking of the MSU offense this season, however, as the Spartans were blanked, 2-0, at Wisconsin on Nov. 25 ...
