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Out shot 38-24.

Welcome to tied for second to last place in the CCHA, folks. With the loss MSU and WMU go a point ahead of us. UNO won and now is tied. Only ND stands in our way to the cellar.

EAST LANSING, Mich. - Sophomore Bryan Lerg (Livonia, Mich.) recorded his second hat trick of his career, lifting Michigan State to a 3-0 win over Bowling Green on Friday night at Munn Ice Arena, ending the Spartans eight-game winless streak. Junior Dominic Vicari (Clinton Twp., Mich.) made 24 saves for his third shutout this season, and 15th of his career.

"It was a very tight game again. Getting that second goal was critical, and we've really needed somebody to step up. We've had a lot of guys working hard, but productively you need somebody to get it done. Tonight it was Bryan Lerg," said head coach Rick Comley.

Bowling Green (3-10-1 Overall, 3-8-1 CCHA) opened the game as the aggressor, recording the contest's first-five shots. Michigan State (6-6-4 Overall, 3-4-3 CCHA) responded by registering 16 of the next 18 shots on goal, and finished the period with an 18-12 advantage in shots.

Sophomore Bryan Lerg (Livonia, Mich.) tallied his first goal of the night at the 10:37 mark of the first period with a great individual effort, giving the Spartans a 1-0 lead. Lerg carried the puck into the zone with speed down the left wing, swinging wide past the BGSU defender. With no defenders covering the middle, Lerg faked a forehand shot and slid a backhand shot past the sprawling Falcon netminder, giving him his third goal of the season. Sophomore Jim McKenzie (Woodbury, Minn.) and junior Tyler Howells (Eden Prairie, Minn.) assisted on the goal.





The Spartans carried a 1-0 lead into the second stanza, and narrowly avoided two fluke goals early. The first came off an errant clearing attempt directed towards netminder Dominic Vicari (Clinton Twp., Mich.), while another puck deflected off Howells on the doorstep and just missed finding the top corner. Not including these two chances, The Falcons' best opportunity to pull even came on a 2-on-1 eight minutes into the period, but the shot hit the post, keeping the Falcons off the scoreboard.

Bowling Green's James Unger skated down the left wing with Bryan Dobek to his right. Junior Ethan Graham (Xenia, Ohio.) defended the pass to Dobek, forcing Unger to fire a shot of his own. The wrister from inside the circle beat Vicari high wide side, but the shot deflected off the post and stayed out of the net, keeping Michigan State's one-goal lead in tact.

Spartan captain Colton Fretter (Harrow, Ont.) tried to extend the Spartan lead on MSU's fourth power-play of the evening, but Horrell snared Fretter's blast from the point with a great glove save, once again keeping the Spartans off the scoreboard. The Spartans finished the game 0-for-5 with the man advantage.

The third period began defensively, with Michigan State nursing its slim lead and Bowling Green working for the equalizer. The turning point came at the 10-minute mark of the period, when Bowling Green turned the puck over at its blue line on a power-play. Lerg forced the turnover and pushed the puck ahead on a clean breakaway, and Michael Hodgson's only hope was to hook him down. Lerg was awarded a penalty shot, the first since Jim Slater was stopped by Bowling Green's Jordan Sigalet, on Dec. 3, 2004.

On the penalty shot, Lerg faked the forehand and Horrell reacted, going down and moving to his right. Lerg made no mistake and quickly switched to his backhand, roofing his second goal of the evening and extending the Spartan lead to 2-0.

Lerg completed the natural hat trick less than three minutes later at 12:46, padding the Spartan lead. McKenzie slipped Lerg the puck off the boards, who skated in cleanly from the wing. On a move similar to his penalty-shot goal, Lerg faked a forehand shot and tried to slip a backhand past Horrell's outstretched pad. Horrell made the initial save this time, but Lerg buried the rebound for his second hat trick of his career.

The Spartans travel to Bowling Green for the second game of the home-and-home series tomorrow night. Faceoff

That's 1-6 in the last 7. They have to get this turned around now. Those that know, what seems to be the deal??

Falconfreak90 wrote:That's 1-6 in the last 7. They have to get this turned around now. Those that know, what seems to be the deal??

Chemistry, pure and simple. You can have the greatest show on ice, but if your lines don't have that "one-step-ahead" mentality, you're screwed.

I tried to listen to the game last night while I worked in the studio..... but could not get WBGU tuned in? Was the station off-line last night? I hate watching game tracker only and I don't have Comcast.

Tech83 wrote:I tried to listen to the game last night while I worked in the studio..... but could not get WBGU tuned in? Was the station off-line last night? I hate watching game tracker only and I don't have Comcast.

WBGU wouldn't tune in for the women's game on Wednesday night either. In fact I can't even tune in the regular radio broadcast.

BGDrew wrote:

Falconfreak90 wrote:That's 1-6 in the last 7. They have to get this turned around now. Those that know, what seems to be the deal??

Chemistry, pure and simple. You can have the greatest show on ice, but if your lines don't have that "one-step-ahead" mentality, you're screwed.

The story of last night's game was missed passes. I can't count how many passes were intercepted in the neutral zone last night. MSU had very good team defense last night. Our defense got beat twice and the puck ended up in the net. It goes back to what Paluch said earlier this year, we make mistakes at inopportune times and it ends up costing us. Maybe we need to study more video, other teams seem to know exactly what we're going to do, before we do it. The FFM line is together for every game, but I think we play better when they are apart. Every line seems to create awesome chances when they are apart. That's just my opinion though.

PGY Tiercel wrote: WBGU wouldn't tune in for the women's game on Wednesday night either. In fact I can't even tune in the regular radio broadcast.

Okay, I glad it's not just me. I can't get the station today either. Well I am about to quite work for the night and have party to go to with Mrs. Tech so I won't be able to listen to the game anyway.