Monday, October 17, 2005

Michigan routs Merrimack, 9-2

Michigan sophomore Kevin Porter

Kevin Porter's first career hat trick and Andrew Cogliano's first two collegiate goals highlighted a seven-goal first period as Michigan cruised to a 9-2 win yesterday afternoon against Merrimack at Yost Ice Arena.

Cogliano added two assists and T.J. Hensick (goal, three assists), captain Andrew Ebbett (goal, two assists) and Jack Johnson (three assists) had notable offensive outputs.

Goaltender Noah Ruden started his first game of the year and made 25 saves while allowing two goals in just under 50 minutes of action. Mike Mayhew played the final 10 minutes.

Freshmen Zac MacVoy and Tyler Swystun each netted their first career goal as well while Mark Mitera tallied his first career point with an assist in the first period.

The Wolverines scored five power-play goals on 12 chances. The last time Michigan scored five power-play tallies was at Notre Dame on Dec. 2, 2004.

"The importance of the start of the game has a lot to do with the direction in which the goals are scored," Michigan head coach Red Berenson said. "I like the fact that we got off to a good start in both games this weekend, tonight in particular. That gets some momentum going and some confidence. We had a lot of players get some quality ice time. If you look at our freshmen, Cogliano scored his first goal, (Travis) Turnbull scored a winner (against Boston College) Friday night and MacVoy scored his first. The point is that everyone's starting to contribute a little more. Hopefully, our team took a step forward from a week ago."

This marks the first time since the 1999-2000 season that the Wolverines have started the season 4-0-0. Berenson's best winning streak to start a season came in 1996-97 when the Wolverines started out 6-0-0.

The Wolverines open the CCHA regular season Saturday against Michigan State at Yost. Faceoff is slated for 7:35 p.m.

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