Sports

Jacks drop two of three

By Tyler Ohmann

01/17/2012

It was another frustrating week for the Dakota College at Bottineau hockey team, as they droped two of three games, including a big loss to Williston State at the Lumberdome on Tuesday.

That is how the week began with a 3-0 loss to the Tetons on the Lumberjacks home ice.

“It just comes down to a couple mistakes where they capitalized on them again,” Jacks Head Coach Travis Rybchinski said. “It’s frustrating because we played well at times, and at other times when we had them on the ropes we couldn’t bury our chances.”

Bottineau out shot the Tetons 40-36, but that doesn’t tell the whole story Rybchinski stated.

“We out shot them, but I think they had better quality scoring chances then us too,” Rybchinski said. “Our goalie made some great saves to keep us in it.”

Bottineau fell behind in the second period after the Tetons got goals from Dwight Lee and Brandon Passely. Passely also scored the final goal for the Tetons with two seconds left in the third period.

“Their better players played better than our better players,” Rybchinski said. “We need ours to get some offense going.”

One of those players that stepped up for the Tetons was goaltender Corey McMahon, who stopped 40 shots in the shutout for Williston.

Lack of scoring has been a problem all season for Bottineau, who is averaging only about 3.5 goals per game.

“That’s from a lack of goal-scoring which we’ve had all year,” Rybchinski said. “We need guys to chip in.”
“I think guys just have to pay the price by going into the dirty areas in front of the net,” Rybchinski added. “I don’t think we had that enough today. When we have chances we have to bury them, not pass it off or just throw it at the net.”

As far as the rivarly between the only two NJCAA hockey programs in the state, Rybchinski doesn’t think there is much there yet.

“I don’t think the rivalry is quite there yet,” Rybchinski remarked. “I think that when game four hits it will be a full on rivalry.”

Evidence of that was the relatively clean game Tuesday, where there were only four penalties called, though sophomore Wade Haight was given a game misconduct late in the third period after hitting the goaltender, who appeared to be grabbing his jersey.

“Now we’re 1-1, and we’ll take that,” Rybchinski said. “With the next  two games, we need to score goals and work harder.”

Following the game against Williston, the Jacks hit the road to play the University of Minnesota-Crookston’s club team in a pair of games on Friday and Saturday.

The Jacks offensive woes continued on Friday as they scored only three times in a 4-3 loss to the Golden Eagles despite out shooting them 65-25.

Goals for the Jacks came from Patrick Martin, Erick Paiement and Chad Miller. Nick Sutton had two assists, and Spencer Haney notched an assist as well.

Corey Weiser hit the game-winner in the second period; it was his second goal of the evening.

The Jacks did bounce back in a big way Saturday, however, as sophomore Jake Plutowski took the scoring matters into his own hands.

Plutowski scored a career-best six times for the Jacks in Saturday’s win. He scored twice in the second, which gave DCB a 4-1 lead. He then extended that lead to the final 8-3 win with four third period goals.

“Plutowski finally got some offense going and it was good to see, hopefully it is a start of something for him,” Rybchinski stated. “He seemed to be in the right place at the right time and finished his chances.”

Seth Serhienko had five assists, while Scott Walters and Ryan Schaner had goals in the win. Damon Reeves, Miller and Sutton each had a pair of assists in the win.

“We wanted to sweep but we played well. Their goalie got us again,” Rybchinski stated. “He was very square to the puck and had some luck. We also missed some empty nets. We battled hard both nights.”

Following the week’s games the Jacks now sit at 6-13-1 on the season. They travel to Fargo to take on the NDSU club team next weekend.