From The Bismarck Tribune
By Josh Dungan
Over the last few years, the University of Mary and Montana State have stapled themselves atop the ACHA D-II national rankings.
Despite their shared general dominance, it’s been the Marauders owning the lion’s share of the matchups between the two teams.
That included this weekend, when the No. 1-ranked Marauders swept the Bobcats in a pair of games at Starion Sports Complex in Mandan, 2-0 on Friday and 4-2 on Saturday.
“There’s a lot of things we did well, and there’s things we can still do better,” Marauders head coach Dan Huntley said. “In the end, we played well enough to win against a good team. We’re now 14-1 against them, all-time.
“They’ve gotten better and better every single year, but it takes time for a coach to come in and figure out what guys he has and how they’re going to play. In the end, we’re still finding that success against them.”
Kyle Hayden was the hero Friday night for the Marauders.
The experienced goalie finished with 31 saves to earn his 11th shutout of the season and the 13th total for the team, both program records, in the 2-0 win.
Liam Massie and Tanner Eskro scored as the Marauders made a 2-0 first period lead stand up for the final two periods of play.
It was the local talent that Huntley has worked hard to recruit that got the job done in a higher-scoring Saturday night battle.
“When we added hockey six years ago, this was the reason,” Huntley said. “We wanted to give local kids the opportunity to play, and it’s turned out very well for us.”
Two Bismarck kids continued their season and career-long dominance for the Marauders Saturday.
Isaiah Thomas, the team’s leading scorer, and Alex Flicek, their third-leading scorer, combined for a goal and six assists in the 4-2 win.
“We got them together on the same line after the break,” Huntley said of his top line of Thomas, Flicek and Caleb Petrie, who scored the first goal to tie Saturday’s game at one apiece. “It’s been very successful, because they’re three guys who understand how to play the game, they know how to have a good tempo, and they have strength and physicality.”
Thomas and Flicek combined to assist on their first two goals of the game, scores by additional local talent Petrie and Johnny Witzke.
Flicek’s third assist came on a shorthanded goal by Seth Cushing, the Marauders’ 13th shorthanded goal of the season against 12 power-play goals allowed.
“Our first line with Petrie, Thomas and Flicek, they played extremely well,” Huntley said. “Along with Johnny Witzke and Drew Lenertz, they were phenomenal. That line carried us, and our other lines didn’t make mistakes and helped eat up ice time.
“We’re a plus on the penalty kill on the year, which is phenomenal for us. To be able to score and put pressure on those guys, we made sure they didn’t have anything going on the power play tonight because we were aggressive on them.”
In both games against Montana State, U-Mary earned what would turn out to be the winning tally by the time the opening 20 minutes had ticked off the clock.
“Our guys understand we have to put the pedal down,” Huntley said. “Those leads help give our goaltenders some confidence, we can play with more relaxation and not having to force play or come back from something.”
A miscue by Hayden, who was back in net and earned his 20th win of the season by making 25 saves, allowed the Bobcats to cut the lead in half in the second, but no further.
“Kyle played well enough today, he turned the puck over on that one that turned into a goal that he should have held on to,” Huntley said. “Those are things we have to learn and get through.”
What did cause the Marauders some issues were some penalties in the second.
One in particular, a retaliation slashing penalty taken by Riley Scanlon after being hacked at first by the Montana State player while the Bobcats were on a power play with no call coming, gave Montana State more than a minute of 5-on-3 play.
“Any of those things that are emotional, it’s difficult to feel bad for us, because guys have to figure out how to play,” Huntley said. “I told them between the second and third, whatever they do goes in the memory bank, go back to the national championships the last few years, the guys playing at the end of the game are the guys we trust. The guys who can handle the emotional aspect of the game.
“If you can’t, you’ll find yourself on the bench watching and wishing you were out there, but you might not know why. It’s things over a few months, over a season, where emotions can put us in a disadvantage. Things like that can happen in a game like this when it’s a game where it’s more physical than we’re used to, but if we can handle the emotional side and not retaliate, just be the aggressor on a check and then walk away, we’ll be good.”
Needing some breathing room, Thomas scored a crucial insurance goal early in the third to restore the two-goal lead by slipping past Montana State’s defense and flipping a puck over the shoulder of Jorgen Johnson, who went 0-2 while stopping 82 of 88 shots against on the weekend.
“Thomas is a skill guy that can really make plays and handle the puck,” Huntley said. “It was a great breakout pass from Flicek on the side boards. He got him up there, he got around the defense, and made a few moves and slipped it inside the post. It was a nice play, silky smooth, just like you expect out of him.”
All told, Bismarck products tallied three of the Marauders’ six goals and eight of their 10 assists on the weekend.
“It’s cool to see Bismarck kids playing together at this level and having that success,” Huntley said. “We’re starting five Bismarck guys, which is fun to watch.”
The Marauders are back on the ice Wednesday night, hosting Dakota College-Bottineau before getting a rare weekend off.
“We got Dakota College at home on Wednesday, we’re 82-2 or something all-time at home against D-II opponents,” Huntley said. “It’s an important thing for these guys — how we play here is different from how we play elsewhere.
“Dakota is having a tougher year than they’re used to, they’re not quite having the kind of year like last year when they were a national semifinalist, but they did clip us earlier in the year in one of the games in Bottineau, so we have to be aware and ready to go.
“Then we get a weekend off and then head down to St. Louis. We have a game against Maryville, they’re No. 9 in the D-I national rankings, then two games with Lindenwood, who is No. 2 right now.”
Huntley is well aware that his team’s previous results against Lindenwood, surprising 4-0 and 8-1 blowouts in Mandan, are unlikely to happen again now that they’re heading to Lindenwood’s home turf this time around.
“We were clicking pretty well at that point in the year,” Huntley said. “They’ll be eager to play us at their place, and they’ll be eager to change that outcome.”
(Originally published at https://bismarcktribune.com/sports/college/marauders-continue-dominance-of-montana-state-sweep-weekend-series/article_e1bff0da-9f8b-11ed-97df-93e7f825562e.html)
