It might be the offseason for most students, but
the Golden Eagles will be diligently working away on the home ice over the next
few days with home games on Friday, Saturday and Tuesday.
Tonight, the Golden Eagles host Stevenson
University. Despite this being Stevenson’s first season of play, don’t overlook
them. Their head coach is a good one. I saw Dominick Dawes coach Neumann to the
National Championship in Lake Placid in 2009…his first year ever head coaching.
It was impressive. In his time at Neumann, he took them to the playoffs all
seven years. So, Stevenson made a wise choice in gobbling him up to launch
their program.
It shows. In Year One, the Mustangs are 7-5-2. A
competitive bunch, their leading goal scorer is Nick Bohatiuk with 8
lamplighters. Mike Davis has 14 points and Jordan Wyatt has 7 goals. Once
again, Brockport will play against an excellent European blueliner….defenseman
Alfred Panelin-Borg has 9 points. Jacob Caffery will likely start in goal and
he sports a .912 and 3.15 line.
Saturday’s game, which has an unusual 3:00 start,
sees them taking on the Lebanon Valley Flying Dutchman. Longtime Brockport fans
will remember them being regular visitors to Tuttle North, but that seems so
long ago…this is LVC’s first season after a 5 year absence from the rinks.
Their resurrection hasn’t been easy, as the
Dutchmen are 3-9-2 on the season. They do have some talent though. Brett
Johnson has a great 10-11-21 line while Cole Hepler is no slouch at 9-10-19.
Jared Karas sports some firepower, too, with 7 goals. Defenseman Brad Nolan is
making a case for All-American with 18 points already on the season. Joel
Eisenhower is their number one in net and he has an .880 save percentage to go with
a 4.32 goals against average.
Tuesday will see Brockport host the always tough
Hobart Statesmen. They are 7-2-3 and are a crazy 4-1-1 on the road. As usual,
it starts with their goaltending. Time has been split between two excellent
goalies in Frank Oplinger (.917) and Alexander Connal (.929). Such slickness in
the net allows them to attack on the other end, made apparent by Nick Bingaman’s
9 goals and a system that has seen 17 players score goals this year. One guy to
keep an eye on is freshman Zach Sternbach who has 5 goals on the season and is
poised for a big game.
It will be an interesting home stretch for our
young men.