The ASU men’s hockey team hosted the Ohio State Buckeyes on Saturday for their second matchup in as many nights. The game was a tense one for most of the evening as the Sun Devils stayed tied with the No. 1 Buckeyes, but two third-period goals sealed the victory for Ohio State.
“I’m extremely proud of our guys,” ASU coach Greg Powers said. “They battled, and you'd have to be blind to watch either one of those two games and not think we have a good hockey team. We battled those guys toe to toe.”
The Sun Devils kept it close throughout, hanging tough with the physically imposing Ohio State team. The game was defined by its physicality, and the ability of the less experienced ASU squad to match the Buckeyes blow for blow showed a lot about the fledgling program.
This physicality came hand-in-hand with more time in the penalty box, with a total of 30 minutes in the box between the two schools. The referees' impact on the game was up for discussion, and when asked about their performance Powers declined to comment.
“Two extended five-on-threes they had,” Powers said. “Or did they have three? They had three, which is pretty ridiculous, especially at home.”
Despite the nearly 54-year age gap between the two programs, the Sun Devils were confident in their abilities heading into the weekend, and the team knew they could hang with the Buckeyes. Nevertheless, the two consecutive losses hasn't dissuaded the team from thinking this program is on the right track.
“Anyone would be pretty ignorant to not see the strides we’ve made this quickly and where we’re headed,” sophomore forward Dominic Garcia said. “We knew this process wasn’t going to be overnight, so for us to come and play with the number one team like we did speaks volumes.”
The schedule gets slightly easier going forward, before a challenging stretch of games in the beginning of November. The Sun Devils take on the University of Alabama-Huntsville Chargers next week. Then ASU returns home for a two-game set versus Nebraska-Omaha before a particularly difficult stretch where the team must battle the No. 16 Penn State Nittany Lions.
“We’re not going to see anybody better than (Ohio State),” Powers said. “We’re going to see a lot of really good teams that are going to contend to win a national championship just like them, but we know we can beat anybody, we know we can compete with anybody, and I like our chances against anybody. We go out and compete like that we’re going to get the bounces and we’re going to win a lot of games.”
Moral victories may not show up in the standings, but their importance can never be diminished. While this realization doesn’t take the taste of losing out of the players' mouths, the idea that ASU is closer to relevancy than some may think inspires this group of Sun Devils.
“We believe in our guys, they believe in each other, and they believe in what we’re building here,” Powers said. “There’s not a person in our program top to bottom who doesn’t know where we’re going.”
Reach the reporter at Jrosenfa@asu.edu or follow @jacobrosenfarb on Twitter.
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