Top-ranked Wolverines sweep WMU

By Matt Mackinder/Michigan Beat Writer and
By Tom Morelli/Western Michigan Beat Writer

The Michigan Wolverines continued their dominance of the CCHA with a two-game home-and-home sweep of Western Michigan last weekend.

FRIDAY

The No. 1-ranked Wolverines earned a decisive 6-1 victory over Western Michigan in front of a sellout crowd of 6,924 Friday at Yost Ice Arena. Seniors Kevin Porter and Chad Kolarik each tallied a goal and two assists, while Billy Sauer made 21 saves for the win.

Porter notched his 20th marker of the campaign, giving the captain back-to-back 20-goal seasons.

"(Western Michigan is) a physical team and they took it to us pretty hard,” said Porter. “But we came right back at them and we were physical with them.”

Travis Turnbull, Chris Summers, Carl Hagelin and Kevin Quick scored the other goals for U-M. For Quick, it was his first collegiate tally.

“Chad (Kolarik) passed me the puck and it was a great pass,” Quick said. “I kind of froze – I wanted to pass, but I saw an opening, so I shot it. It was my first career goal, so I got that out of the way. But more importantly, the team played pretty well tonight.”

Matt Rust added two assists for Michigan.

For WMU, Steve Silver scored his first of the year seven seconds into the third period. Riley Gill made 26 saves through 40 minutes and took the loss before Jerry Kuhn played the third period and stopped 12 shots.

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SATURDAY

For the second consecutive night, Western Michigan struggled to make some noise in conference play, losing to the University of Michigan, 5-1.

Chad Kolarik solidified his presence in the game early for the Wolverines, scoring a pair of goals with the opening period halfway through. Kolarik scored an unassisted goal at the 3:17 mark of the second period and added to his hat trick with a power-play goal in the final stanza.

Helping out on three of Kolarik’s four lamp-lighters was U-M captain Kevin Porter.

The Broncos scored their only goal in the first period, as senior defenseman Nathan Ansell fired the puck past goaltender Billy Sauer on the power play. Assisting on the efforts were forward Dave Krisky and Kevin O’ Connor.

Just 19 seconds later, the Wolverines’ Kevin Quick answered back with a goal of his own while on the man-advantage.

Sauer accumulated 31 saves on the game, while Western Michigan netminder Riley Gill had 33.

Michigan put together a strong effort on special teams, scoring on three of four power-play opportunities.

Up next for the Broncos (6-15-1, 2-12-0 CCHA) is a home-and-home series with CCHA rival Bowling Green this upcoming weekend. Western Michigan will face the Falcons on the road Friday night, before returning to Kalamazoo the following evening. In their previous series, Bowling Green swept the Broncos, with both wins coming in overtime.

Michigan (20-2-0, 13-1-0 CCHA) is back in action Friday when they host Notre Dame at Yost Ice Arena. Faceoff will be at 8:05 p.m. and the game will be televised by CSTV.