Janie Boschma

The men’s hockey team took a split this weekend when it defeated Lake Forest College (Ill.) 2-0 Friday, and lost to St. Norbert College Saturday 2-1.

On Friday the team shut out Lake Forest, giving the team its second shut out of the season and the 21st in team history.

“It was good,” goalie and sophomore Tyler Brigl said. “When that happens it means the team is playing well, and it was really a team shutout.”

On the offensive side, junior Andrew Johnson got the Blugolds on the board in the second period with assists from junior Jesse Vesel and sophomore Tyler Trudell. The Blugolds scored again in the second period off a goal from sophomore Bryan Plaszcz on a power play. Trudell had the assist.

Brigl had 16 saves on the night.

The situation was a little different Saturday night as the team struggled against St. Norbert College.

“We really only played one-third of the game,” senior Mike Gatzke said. “We let them take shots and we realized in the third period that their goalie wasn’t as good as we thought he was. We kind of glorified him a little bit.”

The Blugolds did not score until the third period when Johnson put the puck in the net with assists from Vesel and junior Greg Petersen. But it wasn’t enough and St. Norbert took the game 2-1.

“We were flat for the first two periods,” coach Matt Loen said. “We didn’t play our best.”

Eau Claire had to deal with eight penalties during the night.

“If we could have stayed out of the box we could have won that game easily,” Brigl said.

Loen agreed.

“Taking penalties kind of let the wind out of our sails,” he said. “We’ve been working on that. Sometimes though, it was out of our control with the ref making a call. There wasn’t much we could do. But we weren’t ready to play.”

The win and loss move the Blugolds to 4-3-0 overall.

“I’m satisfied with the play of our team,” Loen said. “But our record should be better. We’ve lost three one-goal games, and mentally, we could have won all three of them, I think. But it’s my first year, and it’s a learning process and I hope the team is learning too.”

Loen said that the team is looking forward to facing UW-River Falls and UW-Stout.”

The team will have a break before heading to River Falls on Nov. 30. Gatzke said the team is not going to let the 10-day break get to it.

“We are not going to take things lightly,” he said. “Anyone can surprise you. We got on top of them last year and we can do that again this year.”