Sunday, October 4, 2009

Mavericks 4, Pronghorns 3 ... St. Cloud wins by same score

Sorry to update the blog a little late. The Mavericks needed some overtime heroics from senior Jason Wiley to defeat Lethbridge 4-3 Saturday night. On Sunday, Lethbridge went to St. Cloud and got beat by the same score, although in regulation. I don't know if you can make any comparisons between the Mavericks and the Huskies from those scores, although it appeared that MSU rested more veteran players than St. Cloud did.

Lethbridge looked like a solid test for the Mavericks. They were a veteran team that played hard, especially in the third period when they got some momentum and really turned up the pressure.

Mavericks coach Troy Jutting said he appreciated the fact that his team had to play in a tight game and face some adversity. "I told the kids after the game that we're going to have 30 games like that this year," he said. "We're going to have games that are tight where every game matters."

What might have been most impressive was the crowd. There were 3,500 people there, including a pretty-full student section that looked like it was ready for the regular season.

Anybody there? What were your thoughts?

4 comments:

Nation said...

I was there, it seemed like a good crowd. I liked the updates that were made to the Verizon Wireless Center. I was impressed the most by the rookie defenders, Elbrecht and Mosey. Both were very aggressive and looked like that had a feel for the college game already. Bowling Green will be a good test to see how the rookie defenders fair against better forwards. Overall I was very pleased with the game. All the freshman looked like they knew what they were doing out there.

hockeyfan said...

I wasn't there but it sounded like a good game on the radio. For limited practices and vets sitting they did a good job. I would say in regards to freshman that most of these kids come out of good Jr programs and the leap to D 1 is not that big. Mosey came from a great Jr. program and Elbrecht has won two National Championships in a row. One with Omaha (Ushl) and one with St.Louis(Nahl). I think it is harder for kids straight out of high school where the schedule is light and the talent not as consistant. If the goaltending is good this team may suprise some people.

TEAMWORKER said...

It's nice to see that other readers are pointing out that the "rookies" can/will contribute to this team. The two D in particular bring good experience and did not look like "rookies" the other night. This team had very good composure after the game was tied with 8 seconds in regulation. That shows that experienced "rookies" can/will play a vital role this season. These two D you speak of played a combined 123 games last season while Mosey was the leading D scorer in the play-offs, 10th overall. This Mavs team will put on a show while having great potential for years to come. Sometimes it pays to stay under the radar as other teams won't see these Mavs coming.

Sam said...

Shane, do you know if they're distributing student tickets at noon on Wednesday like they have in the past?