After a tough loss to their fearsome foes the Weber State Wildcats, the Cougar hockey team looks to improve and move forward with the rest of the season. A short Cougar bench led to fatigue, and with that fatigue came some mistakes.
The Cougars held the usually high scoring Wildcats to just three goals in the first period. In the second period, the Cougars played well, striking back with a goal of their own and finding many shooting opportunities. For the second period the Cougars ended with one goal and Weber made only two more.
Photo courtesy of the Daily Universe.
The decisive period however, was the third.
“We were short players,” Coach Josh Burkart said, “The third period the guys were fatigued and made a lot of mental mistakes, like being out of position, and against a good team like Weber State you can’t do that.”
The cougars competed hard, but once the fatigue and mistakes started coming, Weber seized the moment and scored six more goals. The game ended 11–1 in favor of the Wildcats.
The Cougars faced a tough opponent with a small team and a tough loss resulted. Despite having the odds against them, the Cougars look forward with resolve to improve.
Burkart is already making plans to push his team to be better.
“We need to have more discipline thought the whole game, stick to the system, even when you are tired, you have to stick your position,” Burkart said.
As this was their first game, the Cougars hope to build up their game level endurance as the season progresses.
The Cougars have two more games this week, but this time they have the home ice advantage. They look to square off against their arch rivals the Utah Utes on Friday at 7 p.m. and Utah State Saturday at 7 p.m.
“It’s game one of a 35 game season,' Burkart said. 'Guys make mistakes. We just need to help them learn through out the season. As long as they continue to improve, we should do just fine.'