Regional woes continue for top-seed Huskies

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — Those who proudly wear St. Cloud State red and black would like to say this isn’t familiar territory, but lately, it appears to be the truth.

The No. 1 overall seed of the NCAA Tournament Huskies fell to Air Force 4-1 in the West Region semifinals Friday afternoon at the Denny Sanford Premier Center.

“It’s miserable,” junior forward Robby Jackson said. “I just sucks, man. I don’t even know how to put it into words. We battled tooth and nail, but we couldn’t solve their goalie today.”

Air Force improves to 23-14-5 and will face either Minnesota State or Minnesota-Duluth in the regional final at 8 p.m. Saturday. St. Cloud State finishes the season 25-8-6.

The Falcons, ranked well beyond the top 16 in the PairWise Rankings and qualified by winning the Atlantic Hockey playoff title, struck twice early in the second period on goals by Tyler Ledford after the first 20 minutes went scoreless.

Air Force goaltender Billy Christopoulos makes one of his 39 saves to lead his team over St. Cloud State and into Saturday’s NCAA West Region final. (MHM Photo / Jonny Watkins)

The chances SCSU failed to score on or were stopped by Air Force goaltender Billy Christopoulos from that point on will surely haunt the Huskies, who had 18 shots in the second period.

“The second period was crazy, the chances we got,” SCSU coach Bob Motzko said.

The Huskies are 1-4 in their last five NCAA tournament games and the only lead they had in any of those was a one-goal lead for a 7 ½ minute stretch early in the 2015 West Region final against North Dakota, which UND won 4-1.

There was the 4-0 loss to Minnesota in the 2014 West Region final, followed by a first-round overtime win against Michigan Tech in 2015 in which SCSU never led until the OT goal.

And then, the overtime loss to Ferris State in the 2016 West Region when the No. 2 overall Huskies rallied to tie the Bulldogs, only to lose in overtime.

“I never thought we’d hurt worse than we did when we lost to Ferris, but here we are,” Jackson said.

The NCAA tournament has been a lot more kind to Air Force, which beat Western Michigan in the 2017 first round and has now won three tournament games in program history.

Air Force scored its first goal three minutes into the second period when Ledford broke up a soft pass from SCSU Jimmy Schuldt and knocked it out of the air and past goalie David Hrenak. Officials went to the monitor to check if Ledford’s stick rose above the plane of the cross bar, but the goal was called good on the ice and evidence of a high stick playing the puck was deemed inconclusive.

“We just watched (the play),” Falcons coach and Coleraine native Frank Serratore said. “It was really close.”

Ledford tipped home a Matt Koch centering pass for another goal and his sixth of the season, and then Christopaulos became the star of the show.

The junior from North Carolina stretched across the crease to reach out and rob the Huskies with his glove in the second and third periods, once on a cross-ice pass from Ryan Poehling that hit Jackson in the skates before he could shoot, allowing Christopaulos time to get over.

“(Christopaulos) is dialed in right now,” Motzko said. “If he stays dialed in, Air Force is going to win tomorrow. Someone’s gotta score on this kid.”

St. Cloud State’s Will Borgen (20), Robby Jackson (23) and Jimmy Schuldt (22) mob teammate Blake Lizotte after his third period goal. (MHM Photo / Jonny Watkins)

The Huskies scored with time ticking away on their season with 2:51 left in the third period. Blake Lizotte entered the zone and hit Newell on a pass near the far boards and Lizotte redirected Newell’s shot into the goal.

SCSU pulled Hrenak after the Huskies won the ensuing faceoff, but the Falcons gained possession of the puck as he got to the bench, leaving the net wide open as Air Force skated the puck through the neutral zone.

Jordan Himley sent the puck into the net for Air Force, effectively sucking out of the building whatever steam SCSU had generated and added another empty netter shortly after.

“We played the whole game waiting for that big goal to go in, but it came a little too late,” Motzko said. “We all know now, parity in college hockey has never been greater.”

The post Falcons Stun SCSU appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

St. Cloud State’s Judd Peterson tangles with Minnesota State’s Jake Jaremko in MSU’s 5-2 win over SCSU on Saturday night in St. Cloud’s Herb Brooks National Hockey Center (Photo by Maddie MacFarlane)

Minnesota State’s fast start leads to a win in St. Cloud on Hockey Day

It may have been Hockey Day but the No. 9 Minnesota State Mankato Mavericks spoiled the No. 3 St. Cloud Huskies host-city fun in a MSU 5-2 win.

A packed house of over 5,500 people filled the Herb Brooks National Hockey and Event Center to see the Huskies take on the Mavericks, but a slow start out of the gate doomed SCSU’s chances from the get-go.

Minnesota State quieted the St. Cloud faithful with two goals in the first period. Freshman defenseman Connor Mackey scored the game’s first goal 93-seconds in and Zeb Knutson netted a power play goal at 13:56, giving Mankato a 2-0 lead.

“They had zip the whole game,” St. Cloud junior Robby Jackson said. “They came in ready to storm our arena and we weren’t ready. It’s something we struggled with all year is slow starts and we don’t know whether it’s preparation or pregame warmup or what it is. It’s something that we’re definitely going to address ’cause we’re not going to win anything this year if we come out with a slow first twenty minutes.”

Knutson knew a fast start was necessary if they wanted to come out on top.

“We knew it was going to be a sold out barn and they really draw from their crowd,” Knutson said. “We knew it was important to try and get on it right away in the first five minutes and get the first one. And for Mackey to take that down the wall and sneak one in there, I think it was huge for our team. A little bit of a relief, but at the same time, it got us going. We were like, ‘hey, here we go now, let’s just stay on it here and keep playing our game.’ That next one, [Brickley] makes an unbelievable pass to me and I was lucky to bury it and give us the two-goal lead.”

After drawing a penalty in the early stages of the second period, St. Cloud couldn’t muster a goal on the man advantage. Shortly after killing the penalty, Jake Jaremko of Minnesota State snuck a puck past Jeff Smith and the Mavericks once again had a two-goal lead.

With Smith allowing three goals before the game’s halfway mark, head coach Bob Motzko made a change in net and freshman David Hrenak relieved Smith. The move provided a jolt for the team, because less than a minute after the change, Jackson cut the deficit back to one goal.

Hrenak continued to stop pucks, but at the 15:00 mark of the second period he was hung out to dry and Knutson took advantage for his second tally of the evening. The Mavericks skated into the second intermission up 4-2.

Neither team generated much offense in the first ten minutes of play during the final period. Finally at the 11:55 mark, SCSU drew a power play. Despite putting a few shots on goal, the Huskies weren’t able to crack LaCouvee.

“I thought he was solid,” Mavericks coach Mike Hastings said about his goaltender. “You need goaltending. Late in the season when you play a team like St. Cloud they’re going to make pushes and you’ve got to find a way to keep it out of your net. Us giving up the late one, I was wondering if here comes the proverbial snowball down the hill, but we went to the break and did a good job coming out of that period and getting to the next one.

St. Cloud made a last-ditch effort in the final five minutes. Jackson nearly was inches from netting his second goal of the game and Motzko even pulled Hrenak for an extra-attacker with under two-minutes remaining.

Despite the man advantage, St. Cloud wasn’t able to pull off the comeback, falling to 14-5-3 (8-3-1 in conference play) on the season.

Meanwhile, Minnesota State improved to 18-7-0 (15-5-0 in conference play) and appears to be a force to be reckoned with as the NCAA Tournament in March.

The post MSU plays spoiler appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

SCSU’s Motzko, Poehling represent USA

Based on how poorly things turned out for St. Cloud State by the end of the 2016-17 season, the confidence that its players spoke with in September must’ve stemmed from something other than the previous season’s win count.

That optimism was founded on a belief that another year of maturation would highly benefit a young group. That positivity was proven to be well within reason as the Huskies sit atop the nation in the PairWise Rankings (as of Dec. 14), the USCHO.com Poll and in the NCHC standings as well heading into the three-week holiday break.

“We went through the fire last year. It’s our turn to rise up,” said junior left wing Robby Jackson. “We lost a lot of overtime games and couldn’t close out when we had leads. We knew we had the talent and it was all right there.

“We knew we were going to be good this year.”

SCSU was swept out of the first round of the NCHC Playoffs last season and the Huskies finished below .500 (16-19-1) for just the third time since 1999.

But it’s almost seems as though last season was nothing more than a fluke – a hiccup for a team that was within, at most, one win from the Frozen Four each year from 2013-16.

The first-ranked Huskies have the look of a team that will again be in the conversation as a national title contender this March after a 12-2-1 first half to the season.

And what better of a way to put an exclamation point on the first half than with a 3-1 victory against North Dakota, a team SCSU was tied with for first place in the NCHC going into the Dec 9 series finale.

The state of Minnesota has three teams ranked in the top 10 of the USCHO.com Poll. Minnesota State (seventh) and Minnesota (10th) are also ranked in the top 10.

“We’ve really done a good job of just focusing on the hockey and the only time we got caught up in the rankings was when we were No. 1,” Jackson said in regard when SCSU took its No. 1 rank into a series at Denver and got swept.

“We had a sloppy week of practice and we walked around campus with our heads up high. There was just way too much overconfidence. Denver took it to us and that was our reality check.”

Those losses to the defending-champion Pioneers are the Huskies’ only losses of the season.

Defenseman Jimmy Schuldt leads all Huskies in scoring with 19 points (MHM Photo / Jeff Wegge)

Jackson leads the Huskies in goals with seven – one of them in the win against North Dakota – is second on the team in points with 17. Junior defenseman Jimmy Schuldt’s 19 points lead the team and he also has the team led in assists (14). Schuldt leads the nation’s defensemen in points scored per game with 1.27.

But the numbers that truly show a night-and-day difference between this season and last is in the goaltending category.

Freshman David Hrenak’s goaltending stats are some of the best in the country with his .947 save percentage (second best) and 1.82 goals against average (fourth).

His platoon mate Jeff Smith, a junior, isn’t far behind with a .928 SV% (sixth nationally) and 2.10 GAA (12th).

“We can really interchange them any night,” Jackson said. “We have full confidence in our goalies and it’s comforting to know that we can count on them to save our bacon if we need them to.”

Goaltending was a question mark for the Huskies at the beginning of last season with All-American goalie Charlie Lindgren signing a pro contract after the 2016 NCAA Tournament.

Though Smith emerged as the starter with an improved second half of the season, SCSU missed having a seasoned goalie in net.

As the Huskies completed finals week for the fall semester, their coach headed out to Buffalo, N.Y. to serve as Team USA’s head coach at the IIHF U20 World Junior Championships for the second year in a row.

Coach Bob Motzko is back for a second straight season leading Team USA at the World Junior Championships. (St. Cloud State University Chronicle)

Motzko coached Team USA in 2017 and served as one of Don Lucia’s assistants in 2014 and the United States beat Canada in the gold medal game of last year’s tournament with SCSU defenseman Jack Ahcan a member of the team.

Motzko said assistants Garrett Raboin and Mike Gibbons will act as co-head coaches during Motzko’s absence when the team opens the second half of its season Dec. 29-30 at Princeton.

Jackson’s linemate sophomore center Ryan Poehling earned a spot on the preliminary Team USA roster, making this roster the third consecutive with an SCSU player on it (Will Borgen, 2016 and Ahcan) and he’d be the ninth Husky to make the final roster.

Of course, Poehling understands he needs to make a good impression on Motzko and the USA Hockey staff. He’s one of 15 forwards and two will be cut for the final roster .

“I thought I was able to show what kind of player I am (during the World Juniors Showcase this summer) I feel like I had a really good first half for St. Cloud,” said Poehling, who along with Motzko, left for tryout camp in Columbus, Ohio on Dec. 14. “I’m absolutely honored to be invited to the tryout, but I also believe I’ve earned it.”

Poehling has four goals and 11 assists through 14 games this season and helped the Americans win the U18 World Championships in April in Slovakia.

Hrenak has made the preliminary roster for Slovakia and former SCSU defenseman Dennis Cholowski, who left the Huskies to play major-junior hockey this season, made Canada’s camp roster but was cut Dec. 14.

Should Team USA make the medal round on Friday, Jan. 5, Motzko and Poehling would have less than 24 hours to return to St. Cloud and prepare to take on the Gophers the next night at the Herb Brooks National Hockey Center, followed by a road game on Jan. 7 at Mariucci.

Poehling said he’s willing to play each game.

While the hockey world puts its focus on Buffalo later this month, Motzko said he plans to have more contact with his players back in St. Cloud this year than he did when the tournament took place in Montreal and Toronto.

“I’ll check in more this year, almost on a daily basis just to see how we’re doing,” Motzko said. “I don’t need to, but it might make me feel better. The players will handle it.”

The post Top-Ranked Huskies Blast Through First Half appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

ST. CLOUD – It’s fair to say few people expected anything but a St. Cloud State sweep over seventh-seeded Western Michigan, but in a way, the Huskies bucked a trend they’ve developed this season.

“The weirdest thing is how we’ve struggled at home,” Huskies coach Bob Motzko said.

Five of SCSU’s eight losses have come at home in the Herb Brooks National Hockey Center, including two weeks ago on senior weekend, when the Huskies were swept by Minnesota-Duluth.

“The best thing is that we didn’t lose our focus. We didn’t make a big deal about it,” Motzko said. “We bounced back on the road and we bounced back this weekend.

“The worst thing we could’ve done is made a bigger deal about, but we put it behind us and went back to work.”

The Huskies finished off a sweep of Western Michigan with a 4-2 win Saturday at the Brooks Center, bringing SCSU’s winning streak to four games since the home losses to UMD.

SCSU will play the Denver Pioneers in the NCHC Frozen Faceoff at either 4 p.m. or 7:30 p.m. Friday at the Target Center in Minneapolis. The other matchup will feature a hot UMD team trying to knock off top-ranked North Dakota.

One night after the Huskies had to claw out an overtime victory against a Western Michigan team they dominated in the regular season, SCSU blew Game 2 wide open in the second period to finish a sweep of the Broncos.

Trailing by a goal and held off the scoreboard through 30 minutes, Saturday’s game had a similar feel to Game 1, in which Western Michigan had a lead past the halfway point of the second period.

But a flurry of goals by Robby Jackson, Jimmy Schuldt and David Morley in a span of one minute, 48 seconds put SCSU ahead for good.

“Tonight, I thought we did a good job exposing their defensemen,” Morley said. “They’re big, they’re strong, but we knew we had the speed advantage and that helped us get behind their defense.”

SCSU went back-and-forth with the Broncos in Friday’s series opener, leading to a 4-3 win on Patrick Newell’s goal in OT.

The Huskies carried the momentum into Saturday, but for half a game, couldn’t get the puck to carry into the net.

Western Michigan was able to slow Friday’s game down and play its typical defensive style and SCSU dictated the pace Saturday, but Broncos goalie Lukas Hafner was stopping everything the Huskies threw at him.

Hafner finished with 40 saves.

“We felt we were playing really well through the first period, up until my goal,” Jackson said. “Offensively, we had them on their heels, so we knew it was only a matter of time before we broke through.”

The Huskies finished the season 13-5 at home, but were a lot more impressive on the road or on neutral ice, where they were 16-3-1.

The series win gives a little bit of redemption to SCSU’s senior class, which was honored in a somber postgame ceremony following the Huskies’ second loss to UMD.

“That wasn’t the way we wanted to go out, the way we lost to Duluth,” Morley said. “We knew this weekend was going to be tough.

“Their goalie played lights out, which made it tough for us, but it was nice to get a couple of wins in our last weekend here and we’re excited to get down to Minneapolis.”

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Jackson leading SCSU’s freshman class

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