Tuesday, January 31, 2006

Michigan and Michigan State tie twice

No bragging rights came about last weekend as Michigan and Michigan State tied both games.

With the two stalemates, the Wolverines and Spartans have now tied in five of the last six meetings.

"We can't beat them," Michigan goalie Billy Sauer said. "I think everyone is a little frustrated about that. There's really no emotions right now, nobody is really disappointed, but nobody's really happy either."

Friday night at Munn Ice Arena, Brandon Kaleniecki (pictured) scored late in the first period to pull U-M into a 1-1 tie. MSU captain Drew Miller had opened the scoring for the Spartans.

But from that point on, defense and goaltending prevailed and the game ended in a 1-all tie.

The Spartans appeared to double their lead eleven minutes into the first. Ethan Graham ripped a slapshot from the left point, which later television replays showed to have gone past Sauer, through the netting behind the netminder and carom off the back wall. Officials used video replay to review the play, but after ten minutes of deliberations there was not enough video evidence to award the Spartans the goal.

Sauer made 21 saves and Jeff Lerg stopped 27 shots for Michigan State.

"We're so close as teams, and you almost think every time we play that it's going to be an overtime game," MSU head coach Rick Comley said. "That's what it looks like because that's how even these teams are. But at home, you're disappointed with a tie, bottom line."

Saturday night at Joe Louis Arena, David Booth's second goal of the game with 3:56 remaining in regulation erased a two-goal Michigan lead and pushed the Spartans into a 5-5 tie.

Tyler Howells also scored twice for MSU with Chris Mueller netting the other.

For Michigan, Keleniecki scored twice while Kevin Porter, David Rohlfs and Andrew Cogliano added singles.

Lerg stopped 29 U-M shots and Sauer turned aside 22.

"I thought it was a good tie and I am proud of our guys from coming back from that two-goal deficit in the third," said Comley. "I thought (Lerg) was big for us tonight. He may have given up five goals, but they could have scored that many in the first period with the chances they got. He made some great saves to keep us in it and we were able to battle back to tie the game."

"I hope that everyone now actually realizes that this is a wake-up call," said Kaleniecki. "It's not like we didn't realize it before, but to let a lead like this slip through our hands in a game as big as this one is a disappointment. We're just going to have to bounce back. We didn't have a bad game, we just gave up a few too many goals and didn't bury all of our chances when we had them and we gave up some costly goals at the end. That was the difference. All in all, it was a pretty decent game for us."

Michigan (14-9-3, 9-6-3 CCHA) hosts Western Michigan tonight and then Ohio State for a pair this weekend. The Spartans (14-10-7, 8-7-6 CCHA) have a home-and-home set with Notre Dame starting Friday in South Bend.

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