By Heidi Carmack
The IceCat Hockey team was on a bus to California to play USC and Long Beach when backup goaltender Dustin Van Dyke began feeling sick.
'When Dustin got sick, I thought ''I hope that is just food poisoning'',' said head coach Ed Gantt. 'When the 3rd and 4th guy got it, I knew we where in for a long weekend.'
The No.10 IceCats beat USC on Thursday, (Jan. 25, 2007) with three-quarters of the team sick by Friday, they lost to USC and then Long Beach on Saturday.
'Three-fourths of the team were not at one-hundred percent,' said forward Jason Ciccotelli. 'It had to be something like the flu.'
The team played their first game on Thursday, defeating USC 6-4.
Freshman Brandon Holmes scored a couple of the goals, including the game winning shot, and goaltender Ben Shapiro had a strong game.
However, on Friday morning brothers Adam Farero and Sean Farero, a defenseman and forward, respectively, felt ill. Coach Gnatt wasn''t feeling well either.
By game time, defenseman Daren O''Bray, leading scorer Beau Adams and defenseman Tanner Billingsley, who couldn''t even suit up, joined them.
That evening, the team started their second game against USC, but lost the second and third leading scorers, Derek Battisti and Mike Nathan, during the first period.
'That is the first time in my life that I''ve left a game in the first,' Battisti said. 'The plague killed us.'
The IceCats played the rest of the game hard, but lost 5-2 against the talented No.7 USC team.
'A couple of players stepped up playing sick, they showed a lot of character,' said assistant coach Don Homan.
Saturday morning captain James Burkart, top forward Jason Griffiths and defenseman Bret Styers were added to list of sick players.
The team faced the Long Beach State 49ers that night, with most of their top players out and recovering.
After the first period the IceCats were down 2-0, but they came back during the second and started the third period tied at 3-3. However, the 49ers scored four more goals in the third period to beat the IceCats.
'We just ran out of gas,' Ciccotelli said. 'The guys who normally have energy for a whole game didn''t have it.'
Although the losses hurt the IceCats, they aren''t out of the playoff race yet.
'(The losses) mean we don''t move up to a more secure spot in the rankings,' Gantt said. 'We won''t move down. We are still jockeying for a better position at regionals. We just may have to play a tougher team in the opening round. If you are going to go anywhere, you have to play tough teams.'