After a stretch of five games away from its home rink, NIU’s D-II men’s hockey team returned home this weekend to face Iowa.

The Huskies (7-8-2) lost 7-5 Friday night against the Hawkeyes, (7-6-3)

NIU got off to a 4-1 start after the first 20 minutes of play, but the Huskies were unable to carry that momentum into the remaining 40 minutes of play.

NIU D-II coach Greg Chromy said the remaining 40 minutes was the reason why his team didn’t earn the two points.

“We only played one period of hockey out of three,” Chromy said

Sophomore forward Mark Greenberg said he might have gotten too comfortable with the 4-1 after the first.

“I think we kind of got ahead of ourselves and thought since we were up four to one already that this might be too easy,” Greenberg said, “And then we just kind of let up in the second.”

NIU was unable to salvage two points out of the weekend against Iowa. The Huskies lost 5-3 in their final game before the Thanksgiving break.

Chromy said NIU got off to a slow start, and it could never recover.

“We gave up three goals in the first period [and] basically kind of [that] locked us down so that we were playing catch-up,” Chromy said.

Captain Mike Sible said he thinks the team is continued bad stretches during games is not a physical thing.

“I think we’re losing focus and letting down mentally,” Sible said, “I don’t think it’s anything physically, We’re in good shape. We’re a very talented team, but we’re taking these little mental lapses throughout the game,”

D-III Splits the Weekend

 

The D III team finished the pre-Thanksgiving portion of its schedule with a pair of road games this weekend against Wisconsin-Platteville.

The Pioneers (10-2-2) earned the extra point with a 4-3 victory in overtime against the Huskies (9-5-2)

D-III coach John Lyne said despite the loss, he was happy with how NIU played.

“We played a solid game,” Lyne said, “Wisconsin-Platteville is a good team, but we did play a pretty solid game. We needed to capitalize on a few more of our power plays.”

Lyne said the Huskies penalty kill was key late in the third period and in overtime.

“We ended up having to kill, like, seven minutes of penalties at the end of the game and into overtime,” Lyne said, “So the fact that we got it to overtime and made it most of the way through overtime while shorthanded, that was pretty good for us.”

Junior Brett Wheeler scored his third goal of the season to tie the game up at three and send it into overtime.

The Huskies rebounded with a 6-5 victory Saturday afternoon against the Pioneers.

Lyne was quick to praise his team for playing as a team.

“Everybody was working really hard [and] we played well as a team,” Lyne said. “And we were able to put some pucks in that weren’t going in yesterday,”

Two of those pucks were put in by graduate student David Freitag, who said credit for the goals should go to his whole line and not just him.

“My line was playing really well together,” Freitag said, “We had [some] open ice, getting shots on goal, crashing the net and then the rebounds were there, and we were able to put the puck in,”