UAA Seawolves Hockey Game

Hunter Robertson, Reporter

Friday February 27th the Bowling Green Falcons utterly destroyed the UAA Seawolves in their 4-3 win. The Falcons dominated most of the game and probably would have won by more if it wasn’t for goalie Olivier Mantha and left winger Brad Duwe. The final score doesn’t show how dominant the Falcons were and how bad the Seawolves played.

Brandon Hawkins, freshmen center for the Falcons, scored the game-winning goal with 7:22 left in the game to end Bowling Greens 3 game skid. With the goal Brandon tied the WCHA freshman point leader with 23 points. Winning this game secured the 3rd spot in the WCHA and home ice advantage for the WCHA tournament.

The Falcons had a 2-0 lead but UAA would tie the game twice in the 3rd period. UAA was losing 2-1 going into the third but tied it up only 35 seconds in the final period. The Seawolves took a 5-minute major with 17:06 left in the 3rd for boarding. A few minutes after the boarding call number 13 Adam Berkle would find twine and take the 3-2 lead, Pierre-Luc Mercier and Sean Walker were credited with the assists.

Bowling Green made a few quick mistakes that lead to two separate penalties and gave UAA a very long 5-on-3 power play. Brad Duwe scored on the golden opportunity and tied the game for the final time with 10:26 left in the game.

UAA loss the shot battle 32-21 in the game and 16-6 in the third period despite both teams scoring 2 goals each. Tommy Burke earned his 10th win to improve to a 10-4-3 record while making 18 saves. Olivier Mantha got another loss on his record earning him a 6-16-3-season total with his 28 saves on 32 shots.

The Falcons had a 2-0 lead until they had their first power play chance of the night and Blake Tatchell got an unassisted breakaway and beat Burke bar down to try to spark the Alaska offense. Bowling Green continued to hold the 2-1 lead until 35 seconds into the third period.

BSGU’s second goal of the night was from Mitch McLain after he attempted to pass to his teammate but it went off of UAA’s own Austin Azurdia and slid past Olivier Mantha. UAA was just having a bad night. They had terrible passes, bad bounces and took a few dumb penalties that ultimately cost them the game.

UAA was 1 for 3 on the power play and had a short handed goal so their special teams weren’t too bad but the overall play of the team was very poor compared to their normal selves. BSGU went 1 for 4 on the power play and gave up a short-handed goal. Alaska Anchorage had 19 penalty minutes in their 4 penalties; the Falcons had 6 minutes of penalties in their 3 penalties.

With the loss UAA falls to 7-20-4 overall and 4-19-2 vs. other WCHA teams. BSGU on the other hand improved to 19-9-5 and 15-7-3 in the WCHA. BSGU now holds 3rd place in the WCHA and UAA is still in 10th and last place.