Hockey club tweaks game for tourney

Michael Gill

Michael Gill

The way to the nationals lost, and their conference tourney next weekend, the Jacks had one last stop to make with a weekend series against Minnesota State-Mankato. In the last regular season series the Jacks matched up well against their toughest opponents of the season, barely missing on Friday 8-7 and taking Saturday’s game 5-3.

Although Friday’s game didn’t end in their favor the Jacks still took the opportunity to tune-up their game for the conference tourney. The Jacks finished the game with 30 shots-on-goal compared to 32 for MSU-M, and only got stuck with six penalty minutes on three penalties.

The Jacks on Friday tweaked the sticks, erupting in the second period for 6 goals. In that period Mike Schaub netted a hattrick. Schaub hit on his first at the 13:54 mark assisted by Andy Schuster, after that Schaub would only need 5 more minutes to finish the hat-trick off. Also leading the Jacks scoring for the game was Billy Schneider who tallied two goals for the Jacks.

Saturday the Jacks lost a little of the mental control from Friday, but with only 16 penalty minutes in the game, the Jacks were still able to keep the play even and the score in their favor. Leading after the first period 3-1 the Jacks were able to stay ahead the rest of the game with even scoring from five different Jacks players scoring.

With the weekend split against MSU-M, the Jacks improved their record to 18-6-3 and secured a #1 seeding for the upcoming GPACHA conference tourney in Brookings this weekend. Heading into the tourney, the Jacks can hope that their play since the start of the spring semester will continue and finish the season 20-6-3.

“This weekend if we want to sip form the GPCHA cup, we need to play our best for two games, six periods, one period, one shift at a time. We’ll pretty much have to go balls to the wall; make no mistakes, and get some good goaltending. I like our chances,” said head coach Marty Schipull.