The UCSD and San Diego State University men’s ice hockey teams played a back-and-forth game at the Ice Town in UTC mall on Nov. 10 in front of an enthusiastic home crowd. The Tritons fought hard against the SDSU team, which had given them trouble earlier in the season, to come out with a 6-6 tie.
The Aztecs left the rink less than satisfied on Nov. 10 with a 6-6 draw to the Tritons, whom they previously defeated 10-4 on Oct. 20 at home.
SDSU took a quick 1-0 lead after scoring right off the opening faceoff. However, freshman forward Kenny Mcubbins answered back with a goal for UCSD early in the first period. After the Aztecs followed up with another goal, senior defenseman Paul Greco tied it up again with a goal that deflected off the SDSU goalie, bringing the score to 2-2.
The battle waged on in the second period. After UCSD senior assistant captain forward Kolin Ozonian scored a goal, SDSU capitalized on a UCSD penalty, scoring a power-play goal to make the score 3-3. The rest of the period was scoreless — mainly due to the numerous saves by UCSD senior goalie Rich Carter.
“”Our goalie definitely kept us in the game,”” assistant captain Jesse Tenenbaum said. “”He stopped shots that most goalies would have let in.””
The Tritons took a short-lived 4-3 lead early in the third period on Ozonian’s second goal of the night, on a power shot from up top. After two nice stops by Carter on shots from the Aztecs, SDSU muscled in a shot just past the goal line, prompting the UCSD crowd to boo at the officials.
SDSU scored two more quick goals, putting the Tritons in a 6-4 hole with a little over 11 minutes left in the final period. After the second SDSU goal, Ozonian called a timeout.
“”I felt like we needed to regroup and take a second to focus on what we needed to do,”” Ozonian said.
The timeout paid off as senior forward captain Charlie Blake scored a goal less than a minute later, cutting the deficit to one. The defense also improved, shutting down SDSU’s offense completely. With less than three minutes left in regulation and UCSD on a five-on-three advantage, Tenenbaum scored the game-tying goal. Both offenses were shut out the rest of the way, sending the game into a five-minute overtime period.
UCSD was not able to convert on a power-play opportunity, and Carter’s save on an SDSU shot with 10 seconds left in the overtime period sealed the tie.
The tie was an improvement from the tough 10-4 loss that the Aztecs dealt the Tritons on Oct. 20 at SDSU.
“”We played a lot better on defense and goaltending,”” Carter said. “”We had [fewer] turnovers and didn’t let them break away.””
Because the team was missing five of its starting players, some members of the team were forced to play different positions.
“”We allowed 10 goals last time we played [SDSU], so we didn’t want to let them run up the score again,”” Carter said. “”Blake played defense the whole game. He came in and scored a goal and he checked a lot. He’s usually a winger … he plays offense.””
The deep-rooted rivalry between SDSU and UCSD rendered a large crowd of rowdy fans.
“”We love the fan support; it makes us play that much better,”” Tenenbaum said.
