The Kent State Hockey Club (18-14-1) was swept, losing both weekend games to University of Michigan-Dearborn (17-6-1), with scores of 7-1 on Friday and 7-2 on Saturday.

“It wasn’t the outcome we wanted after last weekend,” said Alex Compean, captain of Kent State Hockey Club.

Last weekend Kent State gained two wins against Slippery Rock University.

“We’re not happy with the result this weekend,” said coach Jim Underwood. “We had an opportunity to move up in the national rankings, and to lose two games the way we did, the guys are disappointed.”

“We had effort in spurts, and in some spurts we didn’t … We’ve got to find that energy and keep it going for sixty minutes,” Compean said.

Friday, Kent State’s only goal came in the first period, scored by Jake Hainline. Michigan-Dearborn managed to score two goals in the period, however, as the Flashes still found themselves down 2-1.

Michigan-Dearborn scored three more goals in the second period and extended their lead to 5-1. They eventually won by a score of 7-1.

“We could have given a lot more,” Underwood said about the effort the team put in. “We couldn’t capitalize on a lot of opportunities.”

Saturday’s game began with a goal by Kent State’s Sean Moore, but Michigan-Dearborn scored before the end of the period, which ended with the teams knotted up at one. 

In the second period, Michigan-Dearborn from the sideboards scored twice more, making the game 3-1. Briefly, the second period was stopped when a piece of glass was knocked out of place, which was replaced before play resumed.

“There was a hard play down in the corner,” said Underwood, “Two big guys hit the glass pretty hard, it just popped out of its frame.”

In the last 10 minutes of the final period, Michigan-Dearborn widened its lead with four more goals. Kent State put up one goal in the last five minutes of the game, scored by TJ West. The final score of the game was 7-2.

“With our second goal, we did a great job of getting the puck to the net. Their goaltender made some really nice saves and we managed to squeak one by him,” said Underwood, expressing more satisfaction with the effort put in Saturday than Friday, despite the loss.

“I think we showed resiliency, but sometimes it doesn’t work out,” West said. “We’ll be going into Senior Night fired up and ready to go.”

“We’ll have to improve defense and energy for sure,” Compean said. “We’ll be at home ice, we’ll have our fans, we’ll bring more energy than we [have] to.”

Erik is a sports reporter, contact him at [email protected].