Tech hockey opener ends in split with Longhorns
By Scott Meuleners / STUDENT PUBLICATIONS
While Tech’s football team took on the Wolfpack for Homecoming, the club hockey team faced the Texas Longhorns. Tech crushed the Longhorns last Friday but fell to them in the second game after multiple injuries.
Tech hockey split last weekend’s showdown in its home opener with the University of Texas at Austin .
Texas opened the Friday series with an early goal by Don Powers. On Tech’s Bill Lindmark’s third shift of the game, the shaft of his stick snapped. Then Jamie Ledyard stepped up the effort for the Yellow Jackets. He scored on a power play at the 11:45 mark of the first period. Jay Simonini scored at 14:58 giving Tech the lead that they would never give up. Thierprayon, Shandolow and Jacobs followed in the third period with goals to give Tech an even larger cushion.
“It sure felt good to destroy the [Texas] guys,” said Simonini.
Goalie Roland Sperlich attributed Tech falling behind earlier in the game to “three early miscues.” Tech ended up winning their first home game 5-1.
However, in the second game Tech started off slow. “Homecoming events had a lot to do with the slow start,” said Sperlich, “Many of the younger players are not accustomed to playing games so close together, and didn’t prepare themselves properly.”
Texas opened up scoring 4:58 into the first period after taking advantage of a pass that went through the legs of Kirby and scoring the first short-handed goal of the season against Tech. Chang snuck past the Longhorn defense and collected a pass to score on another breakaway.
Several first period penalties had Tech reeling and the sloppiness continued as Tech gave Texas a two-man advantage at the end of the first period. Texas capitalized and made the score 3-0. Tech needed something positive to happen and quickly. Simoni stepped up and scored on a power play early in the second. Mike Zaucha followed shortly there after with a goal of his own.
At the end of the second period, Texas tried to put the final nail in Tech’s coffin as they scored a goal to give them a two-goal lead going into the third period, but fortunately for Tech the goal was overturned because of the Texas player kicking the puck into the neck. Ledyard opened up the third period with a goal less than a minute in to even up the score at three.
The third period was hard fought as the Texas team really went after Tech and injured four players during the period. Tech stood its ground, but Texas was able to score a goal with less than three minutes to go in the game. Tech was unable to respond and the final score was 4-3 Texas.
Tech had several players go down at some point in time over the weekend to injury. Sweeney hit the boards hard in the opener and re-aggravated an old knee injury. In the second game: Sweeney injured his wrist and thumb, Thierprayon injured his knee, Zaucha took a shot to the wrist after scoring his second goal and Shandolow took a hit to the head.
Tech will play two more games next weekend. On Oct. 18 at 6 p.m. and 9:30 p.m., the team will face off against Washington. The games will once again be held at Ice Atlanta.
