Saturday, December 10, 2005

MTU surprises nation's top team

Michigan Tech stunned the entire nation with an unthinkable win over the top ranked Wisconsin Badgers, 4-2, Friday night. Wisconsin was 12-0-2 in the last 14 games and were coming off an impressive road sweep of Minnesota. MTU, on the other hand, were losers of the last five and only were able to put up three goals in those games. In the end, it was special teams that won it for MTU, scoring two shorthanded goals and one on the power play.

MTU started the scoring on Wisconsin's first power play, when Jake Wilkens found Chris Conner on a shorthanded breakaway. Michael Lee-Teslak was able to keep the Badgers out of the net.

The game was tied early in the second when UW put one past Teslak, one that he had a good look at. In the same period, Conner made a nice move shorthanded and found fellow senior Brandon Schwartz (above right) open in front of the net and MTU was back on top, 2-1.

In the third, MTU rang first, on a power play, five minutes in when Nick Anderson put home a rebound of a Lars Helminen shot, Schwartz was creditted with the second assist. UW brought it within one at the 10-minute mark. MTU added an empty-netter from Schwartz with 30 seconds to go to seal the win.

The game ended with the crowd of 12,000-plus pretty shocked.

Teslak finished with 31 saves in the win.

The Huskies couldn't finish the job Saturday night as Wisconsin rebounded for a 7-0 win. Teslak started in goal and allowed three goals on 10 shots before Rob Nolan played the final 48:05 and made 25 saves on 29 shots.

It was an ugly game, 150 plus penalty minutes, and 4 game disqualifications, 3 from MTU. MTU will be with out John Schwarz, Jake Wilkens and Mike Botavanja on Friday because of the extra activities they participated in Saturday night.

Up Next...

MTU will host Mankato State in a WCHA series that should be a close contest, both teams are in the bottom half of the league and both need the points.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow!

Great friggin win for MTU!

Anonymous said...

Burnt? Are you high right now?

Why would NMU move into a GLIAC conference? Or Ferris or Lake State for that matter? Not sure, but they probably do a lot better scheduling Michigan and Michigan State than bringing in Wayne. No offense to Wayne, but come on. The in-state CCHA schools would need to forced out before that would happen.

And as for a Big 10 conference, you're really breaking new ground there pal. Let's see, you propose a five team conference. Ask the CHA how that would work. Who would you add to that?

The only thing I agree with you is that tech does not belong in the CCHA. CHA? Maybe, but not CCHA. They'd get crushed by the top tier teams just like their do in the WCHA.