ANCHORAGE, AK -- Courtesy: MTU
Alaska Anchorage scored one goal each period to come away with a 3-1 victory over Michigan Tech in WCHA hockey Friday night at Sullivan Arena. The Huskies’ Bradley Stebner scored his first career goal, but it wasn’t enough to keep Tech from falling to 6-4-1 overall and 4-4-1 in league play. The Seawolves improved to 4-6-1 and 1-6-0 with their first league victory of the season.
“I’m a little disappointed in our effort tonight,” said head coach Mel Pearson. “We got away from our systems, and we didn’t work very hard without the puck. Credit the Seawolves. They played like the more desperate team.”
The hosts controlled play early, although the best scoring chance in the opening minutes came from Tech’s Mikael Lickteig. The junior slipped the puck through the legs of UAA goalie Chris Kamal, but it hit the post and stayed out of the net.
UAA got its first goal at the 10:15 mark. With the teams skating four-on-four, Matt Bailey’s shot deflected off a defenseman right back onto his stick, where he slapped it over the right shoulder of Huskies’ netminder Kevin Genoe.
Alaska Anchorage took a 2-0 lead just 1:08 into the second period on a nice backdoor play. Corbin Karl swatted home a pass from atop the left circle from Eric Scheid.
The teams battled through 17 more minutes of the middle frame before the Huskies scored a much-needed goal. Alex MacLeod skated the puck into the offensive zone and put a shot on Makal. The puck bounced into the slot, where Stebner fired it into the back of the net. Fellow defenseman Daniel Sova notched the secondary assist on the play.
Each team had been whistled for just one penalty through the first 43 minutes of the game period before a sequence of nine infractions altered the flow of the third period.
Tech had a good scoring opportunity during a four-on-four at the 3:30 mark of the frame as a shot from the left point bounced near the goal line underneath Kamal, who had lost track of it. The play was reviewed, but determined that it had never crossed the line.
Later in the sequence, the Huskies were shorthanded 4-on-3 and got caught on a line change. Genoe got a piece of Mitch Bruijstens shot from the slot, but wasn’t able to keep it out of the goal. That made the score 3-1, which became final 12 minutes later.
In contrast to the Huskies’ last game where they and Minnesota State each had 45 shots on net, tonight both teams were under 25. The hosts fired 24 shots on net compared to 19 by Tech.
Each squad had three short power plays in the game. UAA was 1-for-3 while the Huskies were scoreless.
Michigan Tech will look to bounce back tomorrow night and earn a series split against Alaska Anchorage. Opening faceoff is set for 11:07 ET/7:07 AT.
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