By Nate Tenopir, Senior Staff Writer
Goals –
1st Period BSU – 6:14 Illo Radoslav (Ryan Cramer)
UNO – 13:22 Matt Ambroz (Rich Purslow, Eric Olimb
2nd Period UNO – 6:55 Ambroz (Purslow, Olimb) Power Play Goal
BSU – Cramer (Aaron McLeod)
Power Play: BSU 0-2 UNO 1-5 Shots: BSU 26 UNO 32
Three Stars : 1. Ambroz 2. Cramer 3. Purslow Attendance 7,270
Post-Game Comments from Players
On whether or not the team played as well as they wanted to:
Olimb – “I guess working on the stuff we’re working on, we’re doing that well defensively. But we just weren’t getting to the net for rebounds and getting a few more shots as we would’ve liked this game.”
Matt Ambroz – “We executed our game plan but like Eric said, there were some times we couldn’t get to the net. We needed to drive to the net a little more and stop trying to make pass. I think that’s something we can correct and we’re gonna need to correct it tomorrow night. If we do so, we should execute that and we should be all right.”
On his first goal that looked as if Ambroz shot it from behind the net:
Ambroz – “I was just going to the net. Rich made a shot on net and I grabbed the rebound. I went to take an initial hack and the guy kinda hooked me then I ended up behind the goal and I just threw it at the net and all of a sudden the puck was in and everyone was coming [saying] “you scored”. All right, I’ll take it.”
If there was any disappointment in the tie and only getting one point at home:
Rich Purslow – “Yeah definitely, we wanna get all the points we can and every game is so important. We’ll take the one point and move on to tomorrow; and tomorrow’s game is huge.”
On what Bemidji State was doing well to shut down the Mavs:
Ambroz – “They really clog up the middle of the ice and they’re very disciplined to their systems. They’re a very defensive style of a team and they all buy into the fact that they have to play that way. It’s tough trying to get pucks to the net when there’s a wall of green in front of you. They executed their game plan and we executed ours and it kinda came out as a stalemate.”
Post-Game Comments from Coach Blais
General impressions of the game:
Coach Blais – “Well Bemidji is a tough team to play against. They’re real good in their defensive zone; they don’t give you a lot of time. I think the chances are pretty even up and down the ice. We misfired, actually had chances to shoot the puck that we passed up with guys driving to the net. We gotta get the puck to the net to even get a chance on a rebound. Sometimes you gotta get an ugly goal to get things going.”
If not playing at home in 35 days had any effect on the team:
Blais – “Not really, but it sure is nice to be in front of our home crowd. Our players enjoyed practicing here yesterday and this morning but you know it’s back up to North Dakota next weekend. I think we’ll practice here for all of next week.”
On how he views the tie:
Blais – “You can look at a tie as a real negative. But I looked at it as a tie, it’s one point, it’s gonna get real tough in the last 13 games in the WCHA where if you can get a point every game, that wouldn’t be too bad.”
On whether the coach though the defensemen were struggling with turnovers:
“Bemidji at times will make you throw the puck away. I thought we did a better job of coming up the middle of the ice when the opportunity was there. They defended real well from the offensive zone when the puck turned over there transition game from offense to defense and defense to offense I thought was better than ours. We’ll only get better at it with more games. That’s something you really don’t have a chance to do in practice.”
