ADRIAN, Mich. - Whenever the Adrian ACHA Division I men's hockey team faces the Davenport University Panthers you can count on a tight, fast paced game and Thursday night was no exception as the Bulldogs claimed a 2-1 victory in a defensive struggle at Arrington Ice Arena.
Adrian scored goals in the first and second periods and held the visiting Panthers scoreless until the 19:06 mark of the third period, but then it was too little, too late for Davenport, as Adrian claimed their 16th win of the season.
Neither team could dent the scoreboard in the first period until Adrian grabbed momentum just before heading to the locker room on a blast from just inside the blue line from Nick Goettel (Davidson, Mich.), which found its way through a maze of players in front of the net to land behind Davenport net minder Matt Kaludis to make the score 1-0 at the first intermission. Goettel's goal, his second of the season was assisted by Ted Anstett (Waterloo, Ont.) and Matt O'Neill (Mississauga, Ont.).
Adrian took advantage of a pair of Davenport penalties to increase their advantage in the second period as Davenport's Mason Bohlinger was sent to the box for hooking at 3:20 and Cody Mathieu got the gate for elbowing at 5:08 giving the Bulldogs a 5-on-3 advantage for 12 seconds.
Adrian would only need 10 seconds to capitalize as Brad Kobryn (Brighton, Ont.) flipped the puck over the left shoulder of a fallen Kaludis for his 25th goal of the season, with an assist from Andre Rakas (Holt, Mich.) to make the score 2-0.
A desperate Davenport squad would have several fine chances in the third, but all were turned away by Adrian goaltender Austyn Roudebush until the Panthers called timeout to go to six attackers with two minutes to play and Davenport's Kody Polin finally tucked one into the Adrian cage to make the score 2-1 with just 54 ticks of the clock remaining.
That would be the last Davenport shot of the night, however, as Roudebush claimed his eighth win of the season against no defeats, stopping 31 shots on the evening.
Adrian is now 16-1-1-0 on the season while the Panthers fall to 6-4-0-2. Adrian is now off until a week from Saturday, November 22, when they travel to Eastern Michigan for a 7:30 p.m. puck drop against the Eagles.
