The No. 11 ASU club hockey team accomplished something it had accomplished only once before in the history of the program this past weekend: sweeping the season series from UA, 8-0.
The Sun Devils defeated UA 5-1 on Friday and 4-3 in overtime on Saturday in Tucson to secure the season sweep.
The Sun Devils (25-8-3), in their final tune-up before heading to the ACHA National Tournament, rested most of their top players on Saturday and were still able to come away with an overtime victory to finish off the season sweep of the Ice Cats (12-18).
“Anytime you get to beat your archrival eight times in a season, it’s pretty special,” junior forward and team captain Pat Lind said. “There’s a huge rivalry, obviously, so anytime you get a chance to beat them you want to, and to go 8-0 — only the second time its happened in ASU hockey history — it’s pretty nice”
On Friday, ASU quickly fell behind 1-0 after a short-handed goal by UA, but junior forward Joe Schweiger scored his 30th goal of the year to tie the game at one heading into the first intermission.
Junior forward Paul Scola then scored his 18th goal of the year to give ASU the lead for good at the 11:23 mark of the second period, and ASU exploded for three goals in a penalty-ridden third period to put the game away.
Junior forwards Matt Mackey, Mark Chadwick and Scola scored in the third period for the Sun Devils, which featured a combined 10 penalties, including eight roughing calls, a rare kneeing penalty and two game misconducts.
ASU took the ice on Saturday with several of its top players inactive in order to prevent injury before the national tournament, including top scorer Schweiger and sophomore starting goaltender Mark Schacker.
“We were cautious that there were going to be some fights on Saturday night,” Lind said. “They had nothing to lose and we have nationals for our next game.”
The Sun Devils jumped out to a 2-0 first-period lead on goals by Chadwick and freshman forward Patrick Rogan, but UA fought back and tied the score at two apiece on a goal by junior forward Jordan Schupan with 15:39 left in the game.
Freshman forward Danny Anderson gave ASU the lead back five minutes later, but UA tied it quickly on a power play goal by freshman forward Adam Treptow with 7:08 left. The score remained 3-3 as the final seconds ticked off the clock.
All it took for ASU to secure the season sweep of UA was 20 seconds, as Anderson found the back of the net at the 4:40 mark in overtime to secure the win for Sun Devils.
With the season sweep in hand, the Sun Devils will now head to Chicago for the national tournament, where they will take on No. 6 Liberty in the first round.
Reach the reporter at kaglaser@asu.edu
