The No. 4 Michigan State hockey team completed the sweep of the No. 13 Ohio State Buckeyes on Saturday night at Munn Ice Arena, rallying to beat the Buckeyes 4-1 after being down early.
"We were down by a goal, playing a really good hockey team." MSU head coach Adam Nightingale said. "We knew they were going to push but there was no panic. And I thought the second period was really kind of where we were able to control."
The Spartans fell behind in the second period on an unlucky bounce on a shot from Daniel Carfagna that bounced off the end boards, off of Trey Augustine's skate and into the net. The Spartans responded later in the second with a goal from Gavin O'Connell. This was O'Connell's 8th goal in seven games played against OSU.
"Obviously they're a great team and obviously first week playing a Big Ten hockey team, so to get two wins is absolutely huge for us," O'Connell said. "Nothing really changed, it's just going into next week and focusing on ourselves and taking on the next team."
Freshman forward Shane Vansaghi added another goal for the Spartans on a beautiful tip on a shot that was heading wide of the net for his first collegiate goal.
"I think anytime you get a goal, it's a big momentum swinger," Vansaghi said about scoring the go-ahead goal. "Obviously we get that goal at an important time of the game, and that kind of tilted the ice for us."
Isaac Howard took a roughing penalty at the start of the third period but he made up for it, scoring shortly after on a quick snapshot through traffic with 7:40 remaining in the game.
The red-hot Daniel Russell capped the night off with an empty netter to extend the Spartans lead to 4-1 with 3:28 remaining in the third.
Sophomore goalie Trey Augustine looked great tonight as he stopped 29 of 30 shots faced and earned himself the first star of the night honor.
Adam Nightingale talked about the importance of his teams performance on Saturday night.
"It was a good weekend for our team," Nightingale said. "We knew last night, I really liked us for 45-50 minutes and I thought we got away from it and I talked to our group about just trying to play a complete 60 minutes. I told them after the game, (it's) not too often you come in and say good response after a win but I thought that's what happened."
The Spartans will look to carry this momentum into next weekend as they take on No. 20 Notre Dame in another Big Ten matchup at Munn Ice Arena.
