CSUN’s hockey team won 13 straight games to keep their record at 13-0-0-1 with a win over UC San Diego (UCSD) on Friday night, but fell short 1-0, to Long Beach State on Saturday.
Earlier this year, CSUN had problems scoring goals early and holding on for the win. The past few games, CSUN jumped out early on opposing teams. Friday night, they opened the game with eight goals in the first period and ended up defeating UCSD, 19-3.
“I have to give it up to my line mates,” said Brian Standke after scoring his first career goal. “They really helped me out and I wouldn’t have scored the goal without them getting it to me.”
CSUN dominated in every aspect of the game right from the opening face-off. Evan Wright scored a total of four times, Eli Berengut contributed to the scoring with a Hat Trick, and two goals apiece from Tereck Morales, Garrett Heftye and Isaac Breault.
“I was looking to get a goal tonight, happened to get three extra, so it feels good,” Wright said. “I picked up a new stick, getting some confidence with the stick, but my teammates are doing a lot of the work by getting the puck to me though, so I do have to give them a lot of the credit as well.”
A 19-3 victory is always great when players are able to score that high, but head coach JP Gale knows these men need to be tested before they head out to Arizona for this upcoming three-game weekend.
“I’m happy that the guys were helping each other get goals, especially those who haven’t scored goals this season,” Gale said. “It is frustrating because we’re trying to prepare for a big tournament with Arizona [this] weekend, and Wyoming the next.”
Despite the undefeated record to start, as of this past Friday, the ACHA committee says the undefeated Matadors are the 14th ranked team in the West Region, and if playoffs started tomorrow, only the top 12 teams get in. CSUN would not be one of them.
“It kind of sucks to be honest to be undefeated and how hard we work as a team,” said captain Alex Reints. “It just shows that we need to continue to work harder, finish our checks, take care of the small details and continue this streak we have going on.”
The Matadors strength of schedule seems to be the reason they are ranked a little lower than expected. CSUN has only beaten one ranked team, Cal, who is ranked 12th. The tough part of the Matadors schedule will be later in the season as they have games scheduled against No. 4 UNLV, No. 6 Northern Arizona, No. 7 Denver, No. 10 Wyoming, and No. 11 BYU. Those games will make or break CSUN’s season.
Saturday night would not help their ranking as the Matadors fell to Long Beach State 1-0.
A back and forth game, great physicality and amazing goal tending from both teams, but as they were midway through third period, a crushing check from CSUN’s Garrett Heftye, left the team in a tough situation while they needed to kill off a five minute charging penalty.
Heftye, who is known for his physicality, was also ejected from the game.
“I saw a clean and legal shot,” Heftye said. “Unfortunately, the refs didn’t see it that way.”
CSUN would be able to draw a penalty on Long Beach State making play 4 on 4, but the 49ers found the back of the net late in the third, and held on for the win.
“We talked about the mistakes that we made and how we can correct them,” Gale said. “Thankfully those mistakes are correctable, but I think we beat ourselves more than [Long Beach State] beat us.”
The Matadors will be on the road in Arizona this upcoming weekend. They will be playing Arizona State, Northern Arizona, and Grand Canyon University before taking on Wyoming the following week.
