Hockey Sweeps USF

Kennesaw State club hockey won both ends of its weekend series against South Florida, 4-1 and 6-1, respectively.

With the sweep, the Owls improved to 9-2 on the season with hopes of being ranked when the first polls of the season are released this weekend.

“It was a good weekend for us,” head coach Sean Bernhardt said. “I think we’ve kind of built from game to game. We’ve started to improve on our forecheck, and we’ll look at the tape tonight and see where we can get better. [Friday] and [Saturday] were both good wins for us.”

Friday night, the Owls started slow as USF dominated the puck for most of the first period. The Bulls were held to only one goal until KSU’s goalie came out in no-man’s land and USF took advantage with an easy tap-in.

Trailing 1-0, the Owls responded by possessing the puck for the majority of the second and third periods.

KSU forward Devan Bousquet scored the first two goals of the game for the Owls, giving them a 2-1 lead. Forward Ricky Fiorillo added the third goal of the night.

Forward Larry Adegoke netted the final goal of the night for KSU when he intercepted a pass at center ice and deked the goalkeeper one-on-one for the score.

Saturday, the Owls jumped out in front of USF early and never looked back.

Adegoke picked up where he left off and scored the first goal of the contest from the right side of the net to put KSU up 1-0 with 17:20 left in the first period.

Defender Tristian Gagner scored on a slap shot from the left wing to extend the Owls’ lead to 2-0 with 3:25 remaining in the first period.

KSU struck early in the second period when Bousquet fielded the puck off a deflection and put it back in for the score. The Owls led 3-0 with 19:40 to go. Forward Ryan Patel scored the fourth goal of the game with a slap shot from the right wing with 5:36 remaining.

Adegoke’s scored his second goal in the third period to make it 5-0, and he later assisted Patel on a power play for the Owl’s final goal of the night with 10:44 to go.

The Bulls’ lone goal came via a tap from forward Matthew Myer with 5:24 left in the game.

“This season has been a slow progression from game to game,” coach Bernhardt said. “Last weekend was a big win for us against Tampa University. They’re going to be ranked pretty high, so that was a good win for us. We’re happy with where we’re at, but obviously we still feel like we we’ve got another level we can get to. We’ve got some things we need to improve on with our forecheck and D-Zone, but it’s a good start we’ve hopefully put ourselves in a good position for second semester.”