Sports
Jacks put end to losing streak
Tyler Ohmann
01/28/2014
The Dakota College at Bottineau (DCB) hockey team snapped a six game losing skid last Sunday with a 3-2 shoot out victory over St. Johns University (SJU) JV in front of a sparse home crowd.
A blizzard in the area kept a lot of fans away from the games, but that did not keep the Jacks from playing in two entertaining games with the Johnnies.
Officially the three game home stand, which began with a 4-1 loss to rival Williston State College (WSC) last Tuesday, will go down as an 0-2-1 record, but the improvement is there.
“The progress is there, and like I tell anyone who will listen to me, we are better than our record indicates,” stated Jacks head coach Travis Rybchinski. “We just have to keep working and we’ll take our chances when the playoff comes.”
“We have come a long ways since that November trip, but we’re still making the same mistakes, which is frustrating as a coach,” Rybchinski added.
That playoff he mentions will begin on Feb. 5 in Williston and will be against the Tetons that beat them 4-1 last Tuesday.
In that game the opening period was the roughest part of the whole game as the Jacks fell into a four-goal hole to start the game.
In the second defenseman Mark Williams scored to break the drought for the Jacks. James Kelly assisted on the goal that would be the Jacks’ last.
The DCB defense tightened, but they were unable to chip away any more at the Teton lead.
Ryan Miner stopped 33 shots in 37 opportunities in the loss.
Penalties were killer for DCB according to Rybchinski.
“I thought we played one of our best games of the season,” Rybchinski stated. “The only problem is we took too many penalties.”
Still the game left him optimistic.
“I think we are going to figure it out. I hope we are going to figure it out,” Rybchinski stated. “We grew as a team tonight and battled hard for each other. We still need to shoot the puck more, but Williston has a really good defensive core that are solid and they move well for being big, and they did not give us much.”
The Jacks stayed at home for a weekend series with the Johnnies.
The first time the Jacks lost to the Johnnies back in November they fell 7-1 and 5-3. This weekend it was a 4-3 loss on Saturday and a 3-2 shoot out win.
Friday’s game was a back-and-forth affair as each team took their turn with the lead and the momentum.
The Jacks captured it first in the opening period as they scored the only goal in the period, a Cody Bronson marker at 3:08. The goal came on the power play and Lucas Lindholm and Alex Herman tallied assists on the goal.
In the second period it was the Johnnies turn as they scored three straight goals to take a two-goal lead. Two came from Ross Stecklein, and other came shorthanded from Kent Eklund.
With 1:12 left in the second Ethan Hicks drew DCB back within one on a goal from a Matt Mehlhaff assist.
Both teams fought hard to score in the third, and the Jacks were the ones that broke through first. Lindholm scored on assists from Mehlhaff and Casey Barile to knot the game at three.
However, less than two minutes later Richie Brown delivered the game-winner for the Johnnies, and the Jacks dropped their sixth straight.
Miner had 13 saves, as DCB out shot SJU 23-17.
Though it goes into the record books as a tie the Jacks snapped their losing streak and got a 3-2 shoot out victory on Sunday afternoon.
While the winds whipped outside, the Jacks found their comfort zone inside the Lumberdome.
SJU took the lead in the first period, but the Jacks answered back just 44 seconds into the second on a Brett Hebel goal. Williams earned the assist on the goal that Hebel fitted just below the cross bar.
Will Harren gave the Johnnies the lead back at 11:48 of the final frame.
However, DCB wasn’t done as Hebel netted his second goal of the night at 7:49. Aaron Rasmusson, who has been playing well of late earned the helper.
“I think we played hard all weekend, we just didn’t finish,” Rybchinski said. “In Sunday’s game we had chances to finish, and we just didn’t. We have got to find a way to bury those.”
In the shoot out it was DCB netminder Christian Vivian against SJU’s Jason Dzurik.
Hebel beat Dzurik as the first shot for the Jacks, while Vivian stymied the first two Johnnies who tried to tie it up. Erik Rutt did tie it up on their third attempt, which left two more shooters for each team.
Vivian stepped up in the clutch and stopped both SJU shot attempts, while Rasmussson netted the final goal to give DCB the victory.
In total Vivian stopped 26 shots on the day, including the 4-of-5 in the shoot out.
The season’s final road trip will be next weekend when the Jacks travel to Michigan to play Finlandia JV. DCB split with the Lions earlier this season in Bottineau.
Following that though, the Jacks begin their three-game playoff series with the Tetons on Feb. 5 in Williston. DCB hosts game two on Feb. 11, and if a game three is necessary it heads back to Williston.
“It will be tight games, and the crazy thing is the different ice surfaces, there is big and here it’s small,” Rybchinski said. “But we’re just looking forward to Finlandia first, and then we’ll get our ducks in a row for Williston.”
“It’s in the back of our minds, and we’ve closed that gap, now we just have to finish it,” Rybchinski added.
DCB is 5-16-3 overall on the season.