Even after a week-long break, Oregon club hockey continues to dominate the ice.
Oregon played the Portland State Vikings on Friday night for their third game of a four-game series in which the Ducks took home a 7-1 win.
The first period had an explosive start. Both teams came out strong with fast and physical play. Within the first three minutes, Oregon goalie Danny Cockriel had already drawn a whistle and stopped play by covering the puck with his glove after a shot by PSU.
The quick play continued mostly uninterrupted. It wasn’t until the first goal by Oregon’s Matt Ackman at the 7:45 mark that regular stoppages began to take place. 47 seconds after the first goal of the game, Alex Sulitzer logged Oregon’s second goal.
The two-goal lead didn’t cause the Ducks to be complacent, though. At one point, captain Tyler Halverson sent a Portland State forward into the boards with a hard hip-check in the Oregon zone.
The physical play ended up being too much for the refs. With just over 8 minutes to go, forward Patrick Sgarlata committed a roughing penalty in front of the Oregon net. 30 seconds later, Nick Sciabarra joined Sgarlata in the box for the same thing.
Oregon wasn’t the only team committing penalties. In the last five minutes of the period, Portland State earned three of their own — all for cross-checking.
The period ended with a man in the box for Portland State and with Halverson scoring Oregon’s third goal of the game.
PSU started the second period in a three-goal deficit and short-handed with 1:34 remaining on defenseman Josh Powell’s penalty. Their bad luck never got better.
Alex Sulitzer scored an unassisted goal, which was shortly followed by another goal with help from Halverson to give him his first hat trick of the season. For Oregon, the three-goal lead quickly turned into five.
“(The hat trick) feels pretty good,” Sulitzer said. “It was a good game out there.”
Sulitzer didn’t only hear his name on the loudspeaker for just the goals though. He also acquired two penalties during the period. The first was for high-sticking, the second for a cross-check on a PSU player.
“I don’t think (the high-sticking call) happened, per se,” Sultizer said. “I think it’s a phantom call, but it’s all right. Cross-checking was he hit me from behind twice, so I think it was definitely justified.
“I barely hit him and he fell,” he continued. “It’s not my fault.”
Unlike Washington State who only had a handful of guys on the bench, Portland had the manpower to keep the intensity alive past the first and second period. Even in the third period, Portland had enough fire to draw roughing calls. The calls were made on their own defenseman, Powell, less than two minutes in and then in the final minute against Connor McBride.
Oregon scored another three goals in the third period, with one being an unassisted goal by Chris Stankeivicz, while Brandon Stanfill put Portland on the board with their first and only goal of the night. The game ended 8-1.
As for the final game in the Portland series this Saturday, expect more.
“We’ll probably come out a lot better tomorrow,” Sulitzer said. “We didn’t play last weekend, so usually when you don’t play for a weekend your legs are kind of dead that first game. I’m expecting tomorrow night to be a lot better.”
Follow Anne Yilmaz on Twitter @anneyilmaz
[Originally published here by the Daily Emerald on November 2, 2013]