For the second-straight night the Owls scored the first goal of the game, and for the second-straight night the Owls could not continue their momentum.
John Carroll University scored three unanswered goals and defeated Temple 6-3 at the Gilmour Academy Ice Arena Saturday night.
Temple was stricken with 12 penalties for 37 penalty minutes, including one five-minute major.
The turning point came in the second period when junior defenseman Matt Krulikowski got called for a boarding penalty. The Streaks capitalized and scored two goals during the man advantage.
“We had five minutes where they scored two goals, and it kind of took the wind out of our sails,” said sophomore forward Joey Powell, who had a goal and an assist. “We fought back, but we got some bad bounces and that was pretty much it. We kept taking penalties.”
The Owls were also victimized by Streaks’ junior forward Kevin Vineyard’s three goals, which completed his six-point weekend against the Owls.
“He is a good player, but he’s one of those guys you can’t leave open,” assistant coach John Plunkett said. “He’s got a real nice shot. He was able to put the puck anywhere he wanted. If we would have stayed on him and didn’t leave him open, it might have been a little different.”
Plunkett assumed the head coaching responsibilities for Roman Bussetti, while he attended personal obligations. Plunkett has coached seven years for the Philadelphia Blazers and Lawrenceville Flames of New Jersey.
“It was exciting,” Plunkett said. “This is what you strive for. When Roman looks at you and says, ‘Hey man, it’s up to you tonight,’ I was a little nervous, but it wasn’t like I was scared to death. It was more like, ‘OK, let’s strap them on and get them going.’ I’ve done this before 100 times, and today was just like 100 more.”
Krulikowski opened the scoring on a combination of passes from Powell and senior forward Stephen Kennedy nearly seven minutes into the game.
The Owls fought out of penalty trouble halfway through the period, but John Carroll scored a minute after its chance ended.
Sophomore forward Pat Devlin answered the Streaks’ goal with one of his own with nine minutes left in the period.
The Streaks retied the game when they forced another power play and made the most of their opportunity with 6:33 left.
A second-straight night of facing each other resulted in an extra physical style of play for both teams throughout the game, and it manifested itself in the final two minutes of the first period.
A large fight occurred in front of the Temple net put Owls’ sophomore defenseman Ryan Dumbach in the penalty box for four minutes, and two Streaks players were tagged with infractions.
Powell drew the advantage for his team when he scored on a puck in midair on a pass from Kennedy with 38 seconds left.
After Krulikowski’s major in the second period the Streaks led going into the final frame.
Temple began the third period on the power play, but three minutes later the Streaks added to their lead, and Vineyard finished his hat trick near the end of the period.
Frustration built over for the team and the highlight of the scrums might have been a showdown between Kennedy and Streaks sophomore defenseman Joe Mancuso.
“That’s just the kind of guy Steve is,” Plunkett said. “He’s going to go all out for the logo on the front of his jersey. It’s not about Steve. He puts the team first in everything and I really wish we could have gotten that win for him, just because he lays out it out on the line week to week. These guys tried to do it for him and it was just too big of a deficit.”
Stephen Godwin Jr. can be reached at stephen.godwin@temple.edu or on Twitter @StephenGodwinJr
Be the first to comment