Ferris sweeps open­ing home series for the first time since 2001–2002

The Bulldog hockey team defended home ice by sweep­ing the Connecticut Huskies in the first home series of the season.

Ferris began the week­end home stand with a 2–1 come from behind vic­tory Friday night.

The Bulldogs fell behind late in the first period when Connecticut’s Daniel Naurato shot a goal past sopho­more goalie Taylor Nelson. Ferris responded early in the sec­ond period with a goal by sopho­more Derek Graham, his first of the season.

After remain­ing tied for most of the sec­ond period, Ferris was able to break the tie with 1:31 left in the period. Freshman Travis Ouellette deflected a shot by junior Scott Wietecha for a power play goal.

The Bulldogs were able to hold the lead through­out the third period as Nelson made some cru­cial saves, includ­ing stop­ping the game-tying goal right in front of the net with five sec­onds left in the game. Nelson ended the night with 26 saves, 10 of which came in the third period. Head coach Bob Daniels was pleased with the effort from his goalie.

“Nelson had a lot of key saves for us,” said Daniels, “He really had some key stops in the third period and that makes a huge dif­fer­ence in a close game like this.”

After start­ing the week­end with a close win, the Bulldogs dom­i­nated the Huskies on Saturday, post­ing a 6–1 blowout win.

Ferris jumped on Connecticut early in the con­test as senior Blair Riley net­ted his first goal of the sea­son 9:35 into the first period. Junior Todd Pococke gave Ferris a 2–0 lead on his first goal of the season.

The Bulldogs con­tin­ued to pro­duce on offense in the sec­ond period, as senior Matt Case scored a power play goal with 7:05 left to give Ferris a 3–0 lead. Connecticut’s lone goal came from Sean Ambrosie late in the period to close the gap to 3–1 at the sec­ond intermission.

Ferris shut the door on a Connecticut come­back in the third period. Senior cap­tain Cody Chupp scored his first goal of the sea­son on a power play just 42 sec­onds into the third to put away the Huskies.

After sweep­ing the home open­ing week­end series, the team feels con­fi­dent about the start of the sea­son. Chupp said the week­end sweep was exactly what the team needed.

“It was huge for us to start the home sched­ule like this,” said Chupp, “We were look­ing to come out of this week­end with a sweep, so it feels pretty good being able to play well at home at the start of the season.”

One of the keys to the vic­to­ries was the power play, in which the Bulldogs were able to score three power play goals. Ferris had just one power play goal last week­end against Canisius College.

“I’ve been very happy with the way we’ve been able to pro­duce on the power play, espe­cially since we’ve had to switch up our lines because some of the guys have been bat­tling the flu,” said Daniels.

The Bulldogs host Robert Morris University (Pa.), who is cur­rently 1–1 in the sea­son, this week­end at Ewigleben Ice Arena. Last sea­son, the Bulldogs lost and tied in two road con­tests against the Robert Morris Colonials.