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OHIO STATE REBOUNDS TO GAIN WEEKEND SPLIT WITH NO. 13 UMD

Saturday, October 13, 2012

UMD'S Cody Danberg becomes a human kneeler for Ohio State goaltender Collin Olson Saturday night at AMSOIL Arena

There’s little room for error in college hockey. Opportunities can’t be missed. Lapses can’t happen. If consistent play isn’t there for 60 minutes, chances are good that the outcome won’t be a favorable one. That was the scenario that played out for the University of Minnesota Duluth on Saturday night.

The Bulldogs were flat in the opening period, fell into an early 2-0 hole and could never quite get it going in a 3-2 setback at the hands of Ohio State University in front of 6,043 at AMSOIL Arena.

“There was no flow for our team,” coach Scott Sandelin said. “[Ohio State] didn’t have a ton of opportunities, but they capitalized on the opportunities they had, and we missed our opportunities. We had some passengers tonight; we didn’t play with any pace to the game, and we didn’t execute plays. We just got to work to keep getting better.”

UMD did show brief flashes of a game similar to the one it played on Friday, especially in the last-half of the middle period.

With the Bulldogs trailing 2-0 and the power play struggling to generate any significant scoring chances, a hustle play by senior captain Drew Olson nearly changed the course of the contest.

Olson picked up a loose puck at center, flew into the zone and eventually made a perfect pass to Joe Basaraba at the top of the circle. Basaraba snuck a wicked wrist shot under the crossbar to cut the Ohio State lead in half.

Then, with just 36 seconds left in the second period, Mike Seidel netted his third power-play goal of the weekend (his 14th power-play goal as Bulldog) to knot the game at 2-2 before the start of the third.

UMD had the apparent go-ahead goal disallowed because there was a player in the crease during the opening minutes of the third, and, just a few minutes later, the Buckeyes created a turnover and converted on a 2-on-1 to grab the lead for good.

Minnesota Duluth pressed late for the equalizer, but it wasn’t meant to be.

“Obviously we had a couple guys that had good games last night that didn’t show up tonight,” Sandelin said. “That’s not acceptable. We had a goal disallowed, but you got to fight through.”

The Bulldogs (1-1-0) will have a short week of practice before returning to action against Notre Dame in South Bend, Ind. in a rare Thursday-Friday series.

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