From The Alestle
By Sam Muren
The rematch versus Maryville University resulted in back-to-back losses for SIUE Hockey on Saturday and Sunday at East Alton Ice Arena.
After Thanksgiving break, the Cougars returned to action for a rematch against the Saints. SIUE lost to Maryville in a home-and-home series on Nov. 9 and 11. The Cougars lost both games 2-1 in overtime, including their first home loss.
Both games in this series were at East Alton Ice Arena. SIUE was 8-0-1 coming into their rematch with the Saints with hopes of maintaining their dominant home record.
Unfortunately for the Cougars, Maryville came to play in this series. The Saints won both games against SIUE with a score of 5-2. Maryville also won the day before their series with the Cougars to clean sweep the weekend.
On Saturday, the Cougars seemed to come out flat in the first period and were not able to recover from it. Senior goalie Brendan Rasch gave them a fighting chance but neither he or the team could contain the push of Maryville’s offense. The team just could not overcome the deficit and fell in the end.
In the next game, the Cougars gave everything to fight for a win but ultimately fell short.
The first period continued to be a struggle for SIUE, aside from two spectacular saves on one-timer opportunities for Maryville.
The Cougars were severely outplayed. SIUE was unable to get a clean breakout of their zone, and they had multiple defensive giveaways that led to scoring chances for the Saints.
Late in the first period, the Cougars killed off a penalty, but quickly after, Maryville converted on an offensive opportunity to go up 1-0 at the first intermission. SIUE had been outshot 23-4 in the first period alone.
The Cougars woke up a bit in the second period and had their best moments of the game throughout it. SIUE managed to move the puck out of their zone and into the offensive zone for multiple stretches in the second period.
Eventually, junior forward Kaleb Harrop scored on a set-up play to tie the game. Despite the goal and now a tie game, the Cougars fell back into their old habits of the first period. They were hemmed in the defensive zone and gave the puck up one too many times.
The Saints eventually made them pay with a goal to recapture the lead, 2-1. While SIUE may have been down in goals, they managed to keep the shots close, only getting outshot 18-14 at the end of the second period. Maryville had 41 shots at this point in the game.
SIUE started the third period out strong; they managed to get some offensive pressure, which led them to a goal. This goal came from freshman forward Justin Shouse to again tie the game, this time at two.
Shortly after the goal, the Cougars had gone on a penalty kill when they took a second penalty just 18 seconds into the kill. It was now a 5-on-3 penalty kill for nearly two minutes.
Right off the faceoff, senior forward Brendan Sommer outskated the Maryville defender for a breakaway but failed to score. Not long after, Maryville was back in the Cougars’ zone and scored to make the game 3-2 with a minute to kill on the second penalty. Maryville did not waste time as they scored again on the power play to go up 4-2.
Then madness took over. Senior forward Drew Parres took a penalty while on a power play for SIUE. After moments of discussion among the referees, Parres was ejected from the game.
This caused an uproar in the stands and also from the SIUE coaching staff. The official then ejected SIUE Assistant Coach Joey Skelton after some heated deliberation over the call to eject Parres.
The Cougar fans were very upset with the official and began yelling and booing them for the rest of the game. SIUE Head Coach Tyler Elbrecht was also very visibly frustrated.
What was once a Cougars power play was now a Maryville 4-on-3 power play. The Saints capitalized on their third consecutive power play to go up 5-2 in the game. From there, both teams were very chippy on every shift. There were multiple big hits, and there seemed to be lots of trash-talking in between every whistle.
In the end, SIUE lost their second in a row to Maryville, who outshot 51-25, and outscored 5-2.
The Cougars are 0-2-2 against the Saints and have seen the last of them for now. SIUE is still 8-2-1 at home and now 9-10-3 on the season as a whole. The homestand will continue for the Cougars next weekend on Dec. 8 and 9 back at East Alton Ice Arena.
(Originally published at https://www.alestlelive.com/sports/article_ff9e422a-9317-11ee-baac-ff0ec8b5fa26.html)
