Icers earn sweep in first season series

The fight song echoed off the walls of the MSU hockey team’s locker room Saturday night.

It had been a long time coming, but the Spartans finally were able to tune their singing voices, a post-game ritual reserved for MSU weekend sweeps.

In the Spartans’ first two games of the season, they defeated Clarkson 6-1 on Friday and 4-3 Saturday, giving the Green and White their first weekend sweep since Feb. 29 to March 1, 2008, against Bowling Green.

“(Senior goaltender Bobby Jarosz) said, ‘You can never have enough tunes,’” senior forward and co-captain Nick Sucharski said. “And he’s totally right. We have a bunch of fun singing the fight song after a sweep like that.”

Although it was the first weekend of the season, head coach Rick Comley said the sweep was important to help rid the team of memories from last year, when the Spartans went a dismal 10-23-5.

“There’s nothing like winning to build something positive — internal and external,” Comley said.

The bright spot of the weekend was MSU’s special teams. The Spartans went 5-for-16 on the power play and held Clarkson to one power play goal in 13 attempts.

The Spartans’ 10 goals came by committee, with eight different Spartans lighting the lamp during the weekend.

Comley said he wasn’t too surprised with the offensive outpouring he saw from his team.

“I thought we really upgraded the offensive part of our team,” he said. “We are going to score goals. We just have to keep working and getting better. We are playing a new style and adjusting to that.”

Freshman forward Derek Grant was the only Spartan to score in both games after also scoring in MSU’s exhibition win against Western Ontario.

“He’s one of those players who has really good skills who gets scoring chances,” Comley said. “He missed a couple really easy ones (Saturday). But once he settles down a bit, he won’t miss those.”

Saturday’s 4-3 victory was a nail-biter until the very end, as Clarkson came out of the gates buzzing and goaltender Paul Karpowich made a handful of spectacular saves to keep the game close.

But MSU freshman forward Chris Forfar scored the game-winning goal with less than three minutes remaining in the game and said the tough competition was beneficial for the young MSU team.

“It shows us as a team that we can fight and we can play in the tight games,” Forfar said.

“It shows us, as a team, we can fight and play physical. We can play nitty-gritty and get the job done.”

Friday’s win marked Comley’s 750th career victory, putting him in a class of only three other college coaches to break the prestigious 750-win barrier.

Freshman defenseman Zach Josepher led the way for the Spartans in the 6-1 blowout, scoring two goals and recording two assists.

The Spartans (2-0-0) will be on the road the next two weekends, starting with games in Maine before opening conference play at Miami (Ohio) the following weekend.

Josepher said the wins were important to build positive momentum with two tough weekends looming.

“We are one of the top programs in the country and coming from a season like we had last (year), it’s a great start,” Josepher said. “We have to keep going from here.”