MANDAN, N.D. – In their first game of pool play at the American Collegiate Hockey Association Division 2 National Tournament, the University of Providence hockey team fell to North Carolina State 6-4.
The Wolfpack got off to quick start jumping out to a 2-0 lead in the first seven minutes. The Argos got on the board with 1:13 left in the first when
Reed Link found the back of the net, but the Wolfpack's Chris Solomon scored not a minute later to take a 3-1 lead going into the second period.
Cody Hendrickson scored a power play goal midway through the second period to cut the deficit to one, but Solomon responded with a goal of his own a minute later. The same thing happened in the third period.
Will Wright scored five minutes into the third period, but the Riley Johnson responded to make it 5-3. Wright scored a second goal for the Argos with 3:02 left, but Solomon scored an empty net goal to secure the 6-4victory.
"We made some errors with the puck early," head coach
Jeff Heimel said. "It seemed like we'd have spurts of good hockey, then we'd give up a goal. Then we climbed out of the hole and then we climbed back in. Our third period was by far our best period. We spent a good amount on their end pushing shots. It was just too little too late. It seemed like we were playing from behind the whole game."
Wright led the team with two goals, while Hendrickson and Link both scored one.
Cooper Page led the team with two assists, while
Levi Anderson and
Leo Felt chipped in an assist as well.
Despite the loss, the Argos have not been completely eliminated. They'll have two pool play games remaining over the next two days; if they can get some wins and have other pool play games go a certain way, they could advance as the pool winner via tiebreak.
"We can't control the outcome of the other games or predict the outcome of the other games," Heimel said. "I do know that we have to win tomorrow. It's simple in that respect. We win and then see where we fall. We can't do anything else. We can dwell on the game as much as we want but as soon as we move on to prepare for tomorrow the better we'll be."
The task will be tough, but doable. The Argos will face off against the top-ranked Marauders from the University of Mary. The two teams are real familiar with each other having played each other seven times throughout the season. The Marauders are 6-1, though the
Argos beat them the last time they played.
"We need to manage the puck a bit better," Heimel said. "We need to shoot more pucks. Puck management was our biggest issue today so if we can get that taken care of we'll be just fine."
The puck will drop tomorrow at 6:00 p.m. MTN.
