By Brad Coccimiglio
SooToday.com
Sunday, October 25, 2009

After a sweep of Canisius last weekend, the Lake Superior State Lakers played their first conference action over the weekend.

The Lakers split a two-game series with Ohio State in Central Collegiate Hockey Association action on Friday and Saturday nights. The Lakers scored a 3-2 victory on Friday night before dropping a 4-3 decision on Saturday night.

“I don’t think we had any letdowns all weekend,” said Lakers coach Jim Roque. “I thought we competed really hard.”

On Saturday night the Lakers opened up a 2-0 first period lead on goals by Chad Nehring and Will Acton but ran into penalty trouble late in the period when three-straight penalties put the Lakers into a lengthy two-man disadvantage. The Buckeyes used it to their advantage and pulled to within one when Matt Bartkowski scored with seven seconds remaining in the period.

A Sergio Somma goal in the opening minute of the second tied the game at two. A steve Kaunisto power play goal just over three minutes later was the last of the Lakers offense. Peter Boyd and Patrick Schafer then proceeded to put Ohio State ahead 4-3, a lead they would hold onto through the third period.

Lakers goaltender Pat Inglis stopped 25 shots and gave up four goals for the Lakers before being pulled in favour of Brian Mahoney-Wilson to start the third period. Mahoney-Wilson stopped all 12 shots he faced in the period. Ohio State goaltender Cal Heeter stopped 25 shots in the victory.

“We made a couple of bad decisions there taking the penalties,” said Roque. “Then we gave up what I thought were a couple of soft goals in the second period. To beat good teams you can’t do that. If you get average goaltending and you’re not real disciplined, you’re probably not going to win a game.”

Ohio State coach John Markell was pleased overall with the effort of his team in the series.

“I thought we lagged a little bit in the third period (Saturday night) but we were rolling three lines,” said Markell. “It was a good college hockey game. Both games this weekend could have gone either way. Both teams worked hard and we earned the split.”

On Friday night, the Lakers used a pair of third period goals to come away with the victory.

Trailing 2-1 heading into the third period, Kaunisto tied the game just 20 seconds into the eriod. The game would then stay tied until the final minute when Rick Schofield would bring the Lakers faithful to their feet with his second goal of the season with just 20 seconds left on the clock. Simon Gysbers scored the other goal for the Lakers on Friday night. Somma and Bartkowski scored for Ohio State in the loss.

Mahoney-Wilson was solid in the win, stopping 32 shots. Buckeyes goaltender Dustin Carlson stopped 28 shots in the loss.

While Ohio State travels to Notre Dame to take on the Fighting Irish next weekend, the Lakers will host nationally-ranked Michigan next weekend. Game times on Friday and Saturday nights is 7:05.