Indiana hockey returned home to Frank Southern Ice Arena and opened their conference play with a 4-3 loss to the defending conference champion Ohio Bobcats on Friday. Indiana and Ohio have a rivalry that runs deep, and it was on full display Friday night. The Hoosiers and Bobcats had a 5-5 record over the past four seasons heading into this game.
The game started slow, with neither team scoring in the first period. Indiana squandered two power play chances and outshot the Bobcats 16-10. The second period was a completely different story. Bobcats senior defenseman Vinny Rengel opened the scoring, following his shot in on net and burying the rebound past Hoosiers netminder Hayden Reuhl.
It wouldn’t take long for Indiana to respond, with captain Jake Rock whacking home a loose puck to draw Indiana back level.
“Rock is always a leader,” head coach Geoff Bullock said postgame. “For a lack of a better term he is rock solid. I’m very glad he has the captain “C.””
The second period scoring did not stop there, with Bobcats forward Braeden Whitesell cleaning up a big rebound and sending it into the back of the net. This is when the game started to get chippy, with seemingly every whistle being followed by shoves and punches between the two sides.
“We got a guy on the IR thanks to that game,” Bullock said. “But we will come back out. We aren’t afraid to bang bodies.”
Bang bodies they did, with each team racking up more than four penalties each, including multiple offsetting roughing calls.
Ohio followed this goal up with another. A Luke Frost whirl-around wrister beat Hayden Reuhl to the top right corner, giving the Bobcats a 3-1 advantage late in the second period. Early in the third, senior forward Colin Ruffner would draw the Hoosiers within one as he pushed one past Bobcats goalie Austin Martin. The Hoosiers built momentum after this, as they would go to the power play right moments after scoring. However they could only muster a handful of shots and did not score.
The game remained close until Vinny Rengel wristed a shot that hugged the post and snuck in for his second of the night, pushing the Ohio lead back to two. It was only 13 seconds later when Indiana’s freshman sensation Charlie Vincent would answer back. He zipped a shot through the legs of the Ohio goaltender, keeping the game close in the waning moments of the third period.
“Charlie is gonna keep growing,” Bullock said. “He is a great player and he adds to the quality of our team.”
The teams would trade hits, scuffles and words as the clock ticked down toward triple zeros, with neither side lighting the lamp. With just under a minute left to go in regulation, Indiana pulled their goalie and called their time out to try to draw up a game tying play.
Indiana could not get much going in the final minute, spending most of the time in their defensive zone protecting their empty net. The horn sounded and the Hoosiers hung their heads in defeat.
“We’ve gotta shift some guys in the lineup,” Bullock said when asked how IU will bounce back. “The only way we can bounce back is to try something new.”
Indiana will have an opportunity to do just that on Saturday as they square off against the same Bobcats team at 5 p.m.
