After not playing for nearly two weeks, Indiana Hockey returned to the home ice and beat Purdue Northwest 4-3 on Friday.
The Lions got off to a roaring start, scoring just three minutes into the game. Collin Kozjin found Tyson McCaig powering to the slot and McCaig would finish, snapping it past Hoosiers goalie Evan Tompkins to put Purdue Northwest up early.
The Lions would continue their offensive pressure for most of the first period. Kozjin would get back to work again late in the first, this time setting up RJ Swaw who located Tompkins’ fivehole and tucked it in, extending the Lion lead to two before the first intermission. It was a slow first period for the Hoosiers, with senior forward Ben Rosenberg pointing to the life of a student athlete as a potential reason why.
“It’s honestly just tough transitioning from school all week, and then you gotta play a game," Rosenberg said. "First period you are tired and then you gotta wake up a little bit.”
The Hoosiers started to emerge from their slumber in the second. They were chasing pucks, laying hits and out-hustling the Lions all over the place. However, the clock kept ticking and the Hoosiers were still staring at a donut on the scoreboard. That changed with two and a half minutes left in the period as freshman forward Ben Boccone’s shot glanced off the stick of Rosenberg and found its way past Lions netminder Luka Krstulovich, drawing the Hoosiers within one. It was the first point in the career of Boccone. The game would remain 2-1 going into the break.
Indiana was fully awake in the third. The hustle was on full display as they beat out several icing calls and spent most of the period in their attacking zone. With nine minutes to go in the game. Six-foot-8 junior defenseman John Zack flung a shot from the point that was saved by Krstulovich, only for forward Garrett Bauermeister to clean up the rebound, leveling the game at two a piece.
The game would not stay tied for long. In fact, it only took eight seconds for freshman forward Charlie Vincent to snipe one top shelf to put the Hoosiers in front after trailing for the first 50 minutes of the game.
The Lions would see sustained offensive zone time in the minutes that followed, with Tompkins having to make multiple big saves to keep the Hoosiers in front. But as the clock snuck past three minutes to play, it would be a little home rink advantage and some quick thinking that would lead to another Hoosier goal.
Lions defenseman Max Beller would try to clear his own zone but the puck would end up hitting the low rafters of Frank Southern Ice Arena, setting up an offensive zone faceoff for IU. Vincent would glide into the dot with a plan. Instead of trying to win the faceoff back to his teammates, he rifled the puck under the pads of Krstulovich for his second goal of the period and increased the Hoosier lead to two.
Vincent would go back to his bench pointing at his head, explaining his gesture after the game.
“Using my brain," he said. "I saw a couple times earlier the goalie was set, but he was up. He wasn’t fully set, so I tried the faceoff before and I whiffed a little bit but the next one went through. I got a little lucky.”
Rosenberg wasn’t going to let Vincent get away with the modesty.
“He’s great," Rosenberg said. "He has been a huge addition to our line and it has been a lot of fun to play with him.”
With just under 90 seconds to go, the Lions would pull their goaltender and call a timeout to try and muster up a late game push. It looked promising, as Sean Curtin would fire one past Tompkins just moments after the first faceoff following the timeout, drawing the Lion deficit to just one and making Hoosier hearts begin to beat a little faster.
In the end, the Hoosiers were able to hunker down on defense and kill off the remaining clock, securing their second victory in a row.
The Hoosiers now sit at 5-3 and the Lions fall to 5-2. These same two teams will head up 65 to rematch at Purdue Northwest’s barn on Saturday as the Hoosiers look for the season sweep after splitting the series last year.
