2008 Woodie Awards
'Hawks crush Broncos to end slump
Miami outscores WMU 10-1 during home series, now stands alone in 2nd place
Trish Engelman
Issue date: 2/26/08 Section: Sports
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The 'Hawks downed the Broncos 2-0 Friday night and 8-1 Saturday night to earn them sole possession of second place in the CCHA.
The University of Michigan now leads Miami by three points and Michigan State University by five points, with just two regular season games remaining.
The dynamic duo of senior Ryan Jones and junior Justin Mercier lit the lamp a total of three times this weekend to push past Michigan's Kevin Porter and Chad Kolarik as the highest-scoring twosome in college hockey this season with 51 goals.
"We came out great in the first five minutes," Head Coach Enrico Blasi said. "They started to take it to us for a little, but in the third period we really established our game again, and we haven't done that in a couple weekends."
Once again Miami's brick wall was unbreakable for the 'Hawks as junior goaltender Jeff Zatkoff allowed only one goal in 120 minutes of play against Western Michigan, which lowered his nation-leading goals-against average to 1.63.
Friday evening's contest saw a scoreless first 27 minutes; however, the Red and White finally capitalized on a power play opportunity as Mercier gave the team a 1-0 lead, dumping in the rebound off of junior Brian Kaufman's initial shot.
"Friday was big for our confidence," Zatkoff said. "We haven't won in four games so we wanted to come in this weekend and set the tone early on. Once we got control, we owned the third period."
After putting 18 shots on goal in the final period, senior captain Ryan Jones sealed the victory for the 'Hawks when he found the back of the net at 6:31 of the third stanza, ending the scoring at 2-0.
"We have been getting away from our game lately," Jones said. "We've been playing the game that our opponent brings to us. In between the second and third we said we have to get back to being a puck possession team, playing the game that got us to where we are and that made us so successful."
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