UAH (3-1-1 overall, 3-0-0 CHS D2) vs. Alabama (4-3-0 overall, 2-3-0 CHS D1)
When: Friday, 7:30 p.m.; Saturday, 6:00 p.m.
Where: Huntsville Ice Sports Center
Admission: $5 tickets, free for students and kids 12-under
Watch: LiveBarn.com

The UAH club hockey team is riding a 3-game winning streak coming into a home series with Alabama’s AAU Division 1 team at the Huntsville Ice Sports Center. But the Chargers feel like they have yet to reach their full potential.

The Chargers swept their first road series of the season two weeks ago, defeating Middle Tennessee State by scores of 13-7 and 7-5. The wins put UAH’s conference record at 3-0-0, and with six points the Chargers are tied with Vanderbilt for an early first-place position in College Hockey South Division 2 North.

The Watts brothers had a series for UAH. Keaton Watts had four goals, including a hat trick in the first game, en route to an eight point weekend. Kolton Watts also had four goals in his seven points. Both lead the Chargers with 12 points through five games on the season.

Josh Corrow also had a four-goal series against MTSU, with a hat trick in the opener.

UAH was able to score 20 goals in the series, but momentary lapses did lead to 12 goals allowed.

“Happy to get 4 big division points against MTSU,” said UAH head coach Tim Flynn. “We’re really working on playing a full 60 minutes at a high level, for whatever reason we haven’t been able to put together a full game yet this year. We’ve had our moments for sure, and when we’re good I think we can play with anyone but when we’re on our heels we can also struggle against anyone.”

SEASON STATS: UAH | ALABAMA

Alabama is 4-3-0 overall and 2-3-0 in College Hockey South’s Division 1. The Frozen Tide split its Iron Cup series last weekend in a pair of overtime games, winning the first game 5-4 before falling 6-5.

Max Savaloja is the offensive leader for Alabama, with seven goals and eight assists for 15 points in seven games. He’s heating up, scoring two goals in the opener against Auburn and netting four helpers in the second game for a seven-point series.

“We’ve had a couple good weeks of practice and are excited to get back on the ice and compete against a very good Alabama team,” Flynn said. “We’re going to have some tough opponents over the last eight games of the semester, and we need to be more consistent. It doesn’t matter if we’re ahead or behind, sticking to our game plan and competing without getting too high or too low is going to be very important.”

After this weekend with Alabama, the Chargers resume CHS Division 2 North play with two games at home against Clemson. Then they head on the road to start November for a game at D1 Georgia and another conference game at Tennessee.

“The guys have put the work in at practice, so now we just need to execute it in a game situation,” Flynn said. “We’ve put ourselves in a good position out of the gate, but there’s a long way to go and we need to keep improving week in and week out.”

UAH (1-1-1, 1-0-0 CHS) vs. Middle Tennessee (1-3-0, 1-1-0 CHS)
When: Friday, 8:45 p.m.; Saturday, 8:45 p.m.
Where: Ford Ice Center, Antioch, Tenn. (Map)
Watch: Penalty Box Radio (Facebook)

The UAH club hockey team heads up I-65 for the first road trip of the season this weekend against Middle Tennessee State.

The Chargers are fresh off their first win of the season, a 4-3 overtime victory at home against Tennessee to start College Hockey South play last Friday.

“Very proud of how this team battled throughout the game and found a way to get a win against a very good team,” UAH head coach Tim Flynn said. “I know it’s early in the season but these are two big points in the division that help us when it comes to the playoff race. We haven’t had a good first period yet this year, so that’s something we need to clean up.”

While Kolton Watts (3g-2a-5p), Keaton Watts (2g-2a-4p), and Henry Hoff (2g-3a-5p) have been powering the offense, it’s been goaltender Cameron Crawford busy keeping the Chargers in games. In two starts so far this season, Crawford has 113 saves, posting a .929 save percentage.

“Cameron Crawford kept us in it and let us get our legs under us, but that’s not going to be sustainable,” Flynn said. “We’ve talked about learning how to win, and I think we took a big step forward in that department. We were able to bend and not break defensively, again a lot of that credit goes to Crawford. We also had a few situations where, in the past, I feel like we would have taken penalties and negated an advantage but we kept our cool and were able to capitalize on our power play chances which ultimately was a deciding factor in getting us the win.”

Middle Tennessee split its first CHS series last weekend against fellow Nashville metro club Vanderbilt. The Blue Raiders lost the first game 5-1 before taking the second 6-3.

Donovan Yesnach has four goals and six points in four games to lead MTSU.

“We need to have a good start, that’s just something we need to figure out,” Flynn said. “MTSU is a team that is going to work hard for 60 minutes and I expect them to come out fast, and we need to be ready to match that intensity. They have good depth, and are very hard to play against. I mean that in the best way possible.”

The two teams split a pair of one-goal games in Huntsville last season, with UAH winning 5-4 and MTSU winning 9-8.

“There are no easy shifts against MTSU. We had two great back and forth games with them last year, and I expect two more this weekend,” Flynn said. “I’m excited to see how our guys handle the environment on the road. Again, these are four very important intra-division points, so we need to be focused and focus on winning shift to shift.”