Bowling Green, Ohio — After breaking an eight-game winless streak Friday with a 3-0 win over Bowling Green, the MSU hockey team was outhustled and outplayed Saturday night as the Falcons salvaged a split with a 4-2 win at BGSU Ice Arena.
MSU (6-7-4 overall, 3-5-3 CCHA) was without the services of junior captain Drew Miller (shoulder) and senior defenseman Jared Nightingale (sick), forcing MSU head coach Rick Comley into some lineup changes. Comley moved freshman defenseman Brandon Gentile to forward for Saturday's game and inserted senior forward Chad Hontvet onto the fourth line. Nightingale missed both games of the series.
"It's frustrating, obviously," Comley said.
"I thought we missed Miller and Nightingale. Last night we got away without them. Tonight, it just wasn't a good enough of a lineup and too many pucks went in too easy."
Bowling Green (4-10-1, 4-8-1) got on the board early, scoring just over four minutes into the game on a goal by forward Rich Meloche.
The Spartans responded just over a minute later when sophomore forward Jim McKenzie deflected junior defenseman Tyler Howells' point blast past goaltender Jimmy Spratt. It was McKenzie's seventh goal of the season.
The Falcons regained the lead just over six minutes into the second period on a strange play.
Forward James Unger beat junior goaltender Dominic Vicari while running into him and knocking the net off its moorings. After consulting with his two assistant referees and the goal judge, referee Steve Piotrowski ruled the play a goal.
Following a hat trick on Friday, sophomore forward Bryan Lerg continued his hot play with his sixth goal of the season on the power play just over three minutes later. Lerg took a pass from Howells, had a shot, but was patient and walked right in and slipped it past Spratt. Senior forward Colton Fretter picked up his second assist of the night on the goal.
"He's a dangerous player, no doubt about it," Bowling Green head coach Scott Paluch said of Lerg. "You never want to see someone who had a big night the first night. You hope they disappear for a while."
Bowling Green took its third lead of the game late in the period when Vicari had trouble playing the puck and it was centered to the front of the goal and knocked in by Brett Pilkington.
McKenzie appeared to tie the game in the third period on a very similar play to Unger's strange goal, but this one was disallowed on the spot without consulting the assistant referees or the goal judge.
"There were two goals scored the same way and if you don't count one, don't count the other," Comley said.
Paluch had a different take.
"That one was a little different," he said. "It looked from the logistics of it that (Piotrowski) was right on top of the play and saw it a lot clearer than the other one."
From the players' perspective, the inconsistencies were frustrating.
"The third goal, we didn't think that should've counted," Fretter said. "Then Jimmy McKenzie's goal was the exact same situation, so I don't know why ours didn't count and theirs did."
After the tying goal was disallowed, all the wind came out of the Spartans' sails. Bowling Green would go on to add an insurance goal and held off MSU at the end for the 4-2 victory.
"We got outhustled in the second and third period," Fretter said. "They beat us to the loose pucks. We just came out flat after the first period. I don't know what the problem was.
"We just kind of disappeared for the second two periods."
MSU now has little time to regroup as it has to make the nearly 4,000-mile journey to Alaska for a weekend series against Alaska-Fairbanks.
