Tigers Devour Wolverines

In the first round of elimination play ^6th seeded Rochester Institute of Technology faced off against 11^th seeded University of Michigan in a battle of schools with previous success in the national championship events.  Despite the Wolverines jumping out to a 2-0 lead in the first period, it was the Tigers that moved deeper into the brackets in this year?s tournament. 

 

The Wolverines got on the board early in the first period when Brian Hartmann broke into the Tigers zone on a 2 on 1 rush with teammate Derek Samsel (2 goals).  Hartmann skated in down the right side drawing the sole defenseman to him before sliding the puck across to Samsel for a wrist shot into the upper left corner of the net to take a 1-0 lead 0:47 into the game.

 

Michigan extended their lead to two goals late in the first period when Gary Leach picked up a loose puck in the neutral zone skating in along the right boards Leach wound up and fired a slap shot past RIT goaltender Brett Campbell at the 10:15 mark to take a 2-0 lead into the second period. 

 

The Tigers took advantage of an early power play in the second period when Tim Dion (1 goal, 1 assist) redirected a wrist shot from the point by Paul Marzello (1 goal, 1 assist) past Michigan goaltender Daniel Mooney and inside the right goal post 1:40 into the period. 

 

John Nowak (2 goals, 1 assist) tied the game for RIT with 7:52 remaining in the second period when he gathered the rebound of his initial two shots and skated around the back of the goal before walking out front and whistling a wrist shot upstairs over the outstretched glove hand of Mooney. 

 

Rochester took the lead on Nowak?s second goal of the game when he controlled the rebound of a low wrist shot from Mario Jalbert (2 goals, 1 assist) and slid it around the Mooney on the backhand with 4:08 remaining in the second period.  At the end of two periods, Rochester held a 3-2 lead.

 

The Wolverines tied the game at 3-3 in the beginning of the third period when Samsel hooked up with Chuck Nguyen on a pretty tic-tac-toe passing play with Samsel finishing the play by shooting the puck into the upper left corner of the net 1:42 into the period. 

 

RIT retook the lead at the 2:57 mark off an offensive zone face-off win when Mark McCreary (1 goal, 1 assist) won the draw to Jalbert standing on the hash marks on the right side of the circle for a quick wrist shot.  The Tigers extended the lead just over a minute later when Nowak found McCreary cutting in from the left point with a cross-ice pass that McCreary finishing into the top of the net to give the RIT a 5-3 lead with 7:52 remaining before Jalbert skated in along the right boards taking advantage of the gap between himself and the defenseman by cutting into the middle of the rink and beating Mooney with a quick wrist shot inside of the far post. 

 

Empty net goals from Dan Cook and Marzello in the final minutes sealed the game for Rochester and put the final touches on Michigan?s 2004-2005 campaign.  With the win Rochester advances to the round of 16 where they will face-off against Texas-Arlington Saturday morning with a scheduled start time of 11:15 AM.  The Wolverines finish their season with an overall record of 13-17-0.