BETWEEN THE PIPES

A weekend to forget for UWRF men

Posted on Feb 08, 2009

If there was anytime for the UW-River Falls men’s hockey team to take advantage of the defending nationa champions and No. 8 ranked St. Norbert College (SNC), last Friday was the night.

But, it did not and lost pretty bad for that matter, 4-1 and were outshot 36-14.

UWRF coach Steve Freeman said he did not want to make any excuses, but did say the Falcons had a small bench. FIve regulars were out of the line up, which included Tyler Czuba, who has missed the last several games due to injury.

The others were Josh Kamrass, Jon Halstenson and Tyler Pederson who all were serving one game suspensions for fighting against UW-Eau Claire.

The highlight for this game goes to Derek Hansberry, who scored his 16th goal of the season and is now five goals away from breaking the UWRF career scoring mark.

Big feature will be coming on that in next weeks edition of the Student Voice.

Freeman had nothing but good things to say about Hansberry, especially during this season, which has been a little different for the Falcon captain.

SNC’s Matt Boyd had three assists for the game to lead the Green Knights.

UWRF has not defeated SNC since a 3-2 win on Dec. 2, 2006.

On Saturday, the Falcons played Lake Forest College (Ill.) and tied 0-0. It was the first NCHA game this season that Lake Forest did not lose. It is 0-12-1 in conference play this season.

UWRF could have used the additional point to put pressure on UW-Stevens Point for the fifth seed.

Lake Forest goalie Brandon Kohuch made 53 saves on the night. Freeman said nothing was going to get by Kohuch, as he was stellar all night, controlled rebounds and made big saves when needed.

Stephan Ritter, UWRF junior goalie, did not have similar luck.

He was injured midway through the first period with an apparent hamstring injury according to Freeman. Bo Storozuk came in to replace Ritter and made 36 saves on the night.

Freeman said he was happy with the teams effort, but knows that excuses can not be made at this point in the season.

He said he hopes to get some guys back healthy to make a push in the NCHA playoffs.

The Falcons will not host a home series in this year’s playoffs as they lost to SNC on Friday, eliminating home ice advantage in the first round.

UWRF will play arch rival UW-Stout, a potential first round playoff series as well, on Friday night at Stout.

The Blue Devils beat SNC on Saturday 4-3 in overtime and are now in second place in the NCHA behind UW-Superior.

More to come later this week. An update on Ritter will come soon.