Sunday, February 12, 2006

Warriors pick up single point at RMU

The game they should have lost, they tied. They game they could have tied, they lost. For the Wayne State Warriors (5-17-6, 2-7-5 CHA) their strange season continued over the weekend on the road at conference rival Robert Morris.

Friday- The Warriors could have given up anytime on Friday, but they never did and were rewarded with a football like 7-7 tie.

Wayne State was down 3-0, 5-2, and 6-3 to the Colonials and despite a season-long rash of injuries and bad breaks, give the Warriors credit as they refused to give in.

Adam Krug led the Warriors charge back with a career-best five points on a goal and four assists. Krug also assisted on Jason Bloomingburg’s game tying goal that was recorded at the 19:59 mark of the third period.

Krug tied the Wayne State record for assists in a game (four) set by Jason Durbin on Nov. 26, 1999, in a 5-4 Warrior loss to Mercyhurst in the Findlay (Ohio) Classic during WSU's inaugural season.

Krug also set the WSU record for points in game (5). Nine times a Wayne State played had four points in a game (most recently Marc St. Jean on March 15, 2003, vs. Niagara in a 6-4 CHA semifnal win for WSU).

Matt Kelly started in net was shelled for 6 goals on 21 shots. Will Hooper replaced Kelly, coming in cold near the midway point of the second period and stopped 13 of 14 shots.

Christian Boucher stopped 30 of 37 for the Colonials.

Saturday- The Warriors were forced to play catch up in the series finale too, but this time Colonials got the big shot and picked up a 5-4 win.

Wayne State led 2-0 very early in the first on goals by Bloomingburg and John May, but the Colonials scored the next 3 to take a one goal lead.

Jon Grabarek tied it up just past the midway point of the second, but Logan Bittle responded a little over three minutes later to give the home team another lead.

Matt Krug scored at 18:21 of the second to tie the score at four and that’s where the score stayed until 11:30 of the third period when Aaron Clarke scored an unassisted 4-on-4 goal that turned out to be the eventual game winner.

Hooper started in net for Wayne and stopped 28 of 33 shots.

Boucher got the call again for the Colonials, but got the quick hook from coach Derek Schooley after giving 2 goals on 2 shots in the first 1:26 of play. Joe Tuset recorded the win in the RMU net stopping 27 of 29 shots.

The win moves the Colonials to 4-0-1 in their last five games and fourth place in the CHA.

Since beating Robert Morris, 6-3, in Detroit on January 21st, Wayne State is 0-4-2 in their last six and have plummeted to fifth place in the CHA, just a slim point ahead of cellar dwelling Air Force.

Wayne State will welcome third-place Niagara to the State Fair Coliseum for a pair of games next weekend. The Purple Eagles took three of four points from the Warriors at Niagara in early November and are coming off a split with Air Force last weekend.

(Wayne State Sports Information Department assisted in portions of this story)

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