The Western Michigan University Stallions hockey team claimed the I-69 Cup Saturday night, completing the series sweep over #22 Indiana Tech with a 8-3 victory. Along with Friday’s 4-2 win, the Stallions now hold six consecutive wins over the Warriors. Despite the lopsided final tally, the game was a competitive one.
The Stallions fell into a 2-0 hole initially. With 12:55 remaining, Adam Jonak scored for Indiana Tech. With 10:40 left, he assisted Ryan Attwood to push the Warriors up by two. But Western Michigan evened the game up by the intermission on two powerplay goals from Brandon Grillo (with 5:27 and 1:39 remaining), who had two first period goals in Friday’s game as well.
With 14:25 to go in the second, Niko Michos put in a powerplay goal to give the Stallions their first lead. It lasted about ten minutes, as with 5:11 left, Nick Papandrea tied the game at 3-3. But before the end of the period, Christian Sana’s first
goal of the season with 1:45 remaining put the Stallions ahead into the second break.
Indiana Tech had a golden opportunity at the start of the third period, thanks to a major penalty against Zach Mudge in the final two seconds of the second. The Stallions killed off the five minutes and another minor shortly after. With 14:03 on the clock, Matt Shultz added his first goal of the season. From there, a chippy game led to numerous powerplay chances for Western Michigan. They scored three powerplay goals, coming from Devin Farkas, Grillo, and Sana, to lead to the lopsided 8-3 final and six total powerplay goals.
For Grillo, it’s back-to-back games with a hat-trick. After the game, Stallions coach Chris Brassard noted that his line along with Farkas and Mudge was “on fire.” They’ll need to stay on fire to pull of a big upset Sunday, as the Stallions travel to play 4th ranked Davenport at 8:05 p.m. With the win, they’re now 13-11-1-1 overall and 3-6-1-0 in Great Lakes Collegiate Hockey League play. Indiana Tech sits at 13-13-2-1 overall and 7-7-0-0 in league. The Warriors have a home-and-home up next weekend with #10 UM-Dearborn.
Listen back to Saturday’s broadcast below:
