By Dan Hestin
For IUPHockey.com

Published on: February 15, 2010       Comment      Email This Post      Print This Post

Coming off a less than stellar performance in Friday nights 6-2 loss to Youngstown State, the Crimson Hawks wanted to end the regular season on a positive note and take some momentum into the playoffs in two weeks.  Standing in their way were the newly crowned CHMA regular season champions, Slippery Rock, who beat the Crimson Hawks in December 4-3.

Things did not start out well for the Crimson Hawks as Shane Smith scored a short handed goal 4:44 into the game.  Wes Waldschmidt extended the lead to 2-0 with 12:08 left in the first.  The Crimson Hawks then reeled off 3 goals in the next 3:47.  Chris Ondek cut the lead 2-1 at 8:22, Ben Robertson tied the game 2-2 at 6:57, and Casey Stern scored the first of his four with 4:35 remaining in the first giving the Crimson Hawks their first lead of the  game 3-2.   With  2:46 left in the first, Wes Waldschmidt tied the game 3-3 with his second of the night on the power play.  Phil Trombetta gave the Crimson Hawks a lead they would never relinquish with :35 seconds left.  Trombetta’s goal was the start of 5 straight.

Casey Stern tallied his second goal on the power play just over 3 minutes into the second making it 5-3.  Jeff Cupelli doubled the lead with 8:38 left in the second.  Just over a minute later, Joe Ford made it 7-3.  Slippery Rock’s goalie Mike Panza, who was playing for injured starter Shawn Ketterer, was replaced by Mike Nespa.  With 2:56 left in the second period, Josh Hemus scored making it 8-3.  Shane Smith’s second goal of the night came 23 seconds later cutting the Hawks lead to 8-4.

Stern completed the hat trick when he scored on the power play with 15:29 left in the game increasing the lead to 9-4.  His fourth goal came twenty seconds later on another power play.  Slippery Rock’s Shane Smith completed his hat trick with 8:23 remaining in the third.  EJ Stepano closed out the scoring 4 minutes giving the Crimson Hawks the 11-5 victory.

The Crimson Hawks will spend the next 2 weeks preparing for the CHMA Playoffs that will take place February 26-28, 2010 at the S&T Bank Arena.  They have locked in the #4 seed and will play either Pitt or W&J at 9:50 on Friday the 26th.