Hockey club seeks first win of season at Wash U.

Neal Hamm
Sports Stringer

Still looking for a win, the SIUE Cougar ice hockey club heads back to Wentzville, Mo., to play Washington University Friday.

SIUE is 0-4 overall this season, but help may be on the way.

SIUE faced Wash U. twice last season, producing a tie and a win.

"Last year, when we went to play them at their place, we tied them because we took some stupid penalties," team captain Scott Cloin said. "We're a better team than them, though. We expect to beat this team."

Cloin said that even though he expected a Cougar win, the players can't be overconfident going into the game.

"If we go to the game and act (overconfident), they're going to get the best of us, but if we go into the game and just play like we know we can, then we'll win," Cloin said.

The Cougars are trying to forget about last weekend as they head into their game against Wash U. at 9 p.m. at the Wentzville Ice Arena.

Last weekend, the Cougars saw a loss to both the University of Missouri-St. Louis and the Blues Alumni. The Blues Alumni game was a charity game, but the Cougar loss to UMSL was disappointing.

"We pretty much knew that we were going to lose against the Blues Alumni because they're the Blues Alumni, but we were really hoping for a win against UMSL," Cloin said.

Last Saturday's game in Wentzville ended in a 9-2 loss for the Cougars. The Cougars scored in the first period as Brad Maggio won a face-off in UMSL's end, passing the puck to the point, where Bobby Meszaros slid it between the legs of the goalie.

Late in the second period, a pass by Cloin to the front of UMSL net was met by Ty Suhre, who flipped it into the goal for the Cougars' second and final goal of the game.

UMSL won the game 9-2 and outshot the Cougars 58-15.

Late in the third period when the score was out of reach for the Cougars, the game started to get out of hand. With 16 seconds left to go in the game, a fight broke out between players on each team.

Referee Gary Byrd, unable to determine who started the fight and who was involved, gave all five skaters on both teams a 10-minute misconduct penalty. The game ended with the clock counting down and both goalies standing in their nets.