You know things aren't going well when, for the first 55 minutes of Saturday's hockey game, the loudest cheer came when Jason Teague took a 3-yard plunge into the end zone for a touchdown.
That was the case for Spartans (2-4-0, 1-3-0 CCHA) as they were romped, 5-2, by Nebraska-Omaha (5-1-0, 3-1-0) in front of only 4,946 fans at Munn Ice Arena.
"(I'm) confused," MSU head coach Rick Comley said. "I thought we played really well (Friday), and I was certainly surprised by the level of play tonight.
MSU swung the score around on Nebraska-Omaha on Friday night, winning 5-2.
"We played hard for about 10 minutes in third period and that's all," Comley said of Saturday's game.
The biggest story of Saturday game came late in the first period with Nebraska-Omaha owning a 1-0 lead. Mavericks forward Scott Parse drove to the net and was hooked by MSU freshman defenseman Jeff Dunne.
Parse then fell into MSU sophomore goaltender Dominic Vicari. Vicari sustained a head injury. He was down on the ice for several minutes before being assisted to the locker room, after which he was taken to Lansing's Sparrow Hospital for evaluation. His status is unknown.
Senior Matt Migliaccio then took over.
"It's a hit to the team," sophomore forward Drew Miller said. "Migs came in and made some big saves, but we really didn't help him out too much."
The Mavericks took a 2-0 lead less than four minutes into the second period when Parse deflected a shot by forward Kaleb Betts from the point and into the goal.
Then the bottom fell out for MSU, as Nebraska-Omaha scored two goals in more than two minutes.
After the Mavericks successfully killed off a penalty, Mavericks forward Bryan Marshall snapped a wrister past Migliaccio.
Then, after being called for its fourth consecutive penalty, Nebraska-Omaha converted again when forward Bill Thomas was sprung on a breakaway, ducked, and slid the puck past the outstretched leg of Migliaccio. Defenseman Rob Chappell and Parse assisted.
"They've been huge players for us," Nebraska-Omaha head coach Mike Kemp said of Thomas and Parse. "They stepped forward and did the little things.
The Spartans got a spark with two goals in less than a minute with five minutes to go in the third period.
Miller and sophomore forward Tommy Goebel scored about 40 seconds apart. But for MSU, it was too little, too late, as Thomas was able to add an empty net goal.
"At 2-4, you can't say that right now we're a good team," MSU junior defenseman Jared Nightingale said.
