Once again, the Chargers came back from a beat down to play a better game the next night. Considering the opponent, this was no small feat this time around.

One night after getting pasted by third-ranked St. Cloud State 10-0 on Friday, UAH was never out of it Saturday, rallying from two goals down but falling 4-3 to the Huskies on Saturday.

St. Cloud State still held a decisive edge on puck possession in the UAH zone, and in shots on goal at 42-15. But thanks to Matt Larose’s glove and some timely passes, the Chargers didn’t make it so easy for Nic Dowd on the second night of his Huntsville homecoming.

St. Cloud State dominated most of the first period, peppering Larose with the first 10 shots on goal through the first seven minutes of the game. The Huskies took the early lead as Cory Thorson punches in a rebound at the 6:16 mark, and confirmed after a lengthy video review.

The action remained mostly in the UAH end, but the Chargers finally capitalized on their rare offensive opportunities. Regan Soquila wristed the puck past SCSU goaltender Ryan Faragher on a feed from Matt Salhany in the left corner to tie the game at 1-1 at the 10:56 mark.

It was Soquila’s first goal as a Charger, and Salhany’s first assist. Wade Schools picked up the second assist, his second of the season.

Despite being outshot 16-7, UAH found itself tied with the third-ranked Huskies after one period.

It was mostly Huskies again the second. St. Cloud extended their lead to 3-1 after Dowd’s great stick work led to a goal at 8:56, and David Morley’s goal off a nice feed from the point at 13:40.

Larose had the glove working, however, to keep the Chargers in the game. He made several glove saves, including three critical stops during a two-minute, two-man advantage for St. Cloud late in the period after Craig Pierce was penalized for holding the stick and Code Marooney was called for slashing.

The Chargers rallied in the third with two unanswered goals. Frank Misuraca’s outlet pass along the far boards went to Craig Pierce, who centered it to Stephen McKenna, who scored his first goal for the Chargers. UAH cut St. Cloud’s lead to 3-2 with 16:29 left.

UAH tied the game on the power play with 6:09 left. Steve Koshey’s drive from the center point went to Jeff Vanderlugt, who found Matt Salhany, who got his second goal of the season.

However, Daniel Tedesco was able to beat Larose just 27 seconds later to regain the lead for the Huskies. UAH came up short after pulling Larose for an extra attacker in the final minute and a couple of last-chance rushes.

Larose made 38 saves as the Chargers suffered their fourth one-goal defeat of the season.

There were other bright spots: UAH’s maligned penalty killing had a good night, stopping all five of St. Cloud’s power plays (including the two-man advantage late in the second). This was the Chargers’ highest scoring output of the season as well.

The Chargers resume WCHA play next weekend when they visit Northern Michigan. The next UAH home games are December 13 and 14 against Minnesota State.

There’s not much to say about this one. St. Cloud State is the third-ranked team in the country, and UAH is struggling. It all came together for a 10-0 win for Huntsville native Nic Dowd and his Huskies on Friday night.

Dowd scored twice as the Chargers tied the record for the worst home defeat in the program’s history. Colgate beat UAH 12-2 at the Von Braun Center on November 30, 1986.

Despite still searching for their first victory, the Chargers have had one competitive game in each series this season. They’ll try to keep that going Saturday night against the Huskies. The puck drops at 7:07 and the first 1,000 fans receive UAH Chargers thunder sticks.

Unfortunately, all the thunder came from St. Cloud State and its senior captain from the Rocket City on Friday.

The Huskies scored their first goal just 2:19 in. Ethan Prow’s shot from inside the blue line somehow made its way through traffic and past UAH goaltender Carmine Guerriero.

At 11:51, Jonny Brodzinski made it 2-0 as he beat Guerriero from the slot on a nice pass from the left circle by Kalle Kosilla.

Despite the quick lead, UAH had a 5-3 shots on goal lead by the halfway point of the first. After that, St. Cloud State had the last eight shots on goal, and punctuated the period with Cory Thorson’s rebound goal with just 21 seconds left in the period. Meanwhile, the Chargers only managed a hit post.

In the second period, it was complete domination by St. Cloud State.

Dowd’s two goals lead off the frame. The second goal game during a major power play for the Huskies after Regan Soquila checked Ben Storm from behind and got the game misconduct.

Kosilla also netted one on that power play to make it 6-0, and Guerriero was replaced by senior netminder C.J. Groh, seeing his first action of the season at the 9:01 mark of the second.

Joey Benik, Brodzinski, and Garrett Milan proceeded to extend St. Cloud’s lead to 9-0 after two. The Huskies out shot the Chargers 22-2 in the period.

The Huskies, who got a third-period goal from Daniel Tedesco to finish the scoring, outshot the Chargers 47-11 for the game.

Guerriero stopped 16 of 22 shots, while Groh stopped 21 of 25.

This is one series where the boys can use all the support they can get. Third-ranked St. Cloud State comes to town as UAH’s lone non-conference home opponent of the season.

Tickets are available through Ticketmaster and the VBC box office. This week’s promotions are:

• Friday night, kids 12 and under bringing a canned food item gets free admission.
• Saturday night, the first 1,000 fans receive a pair of UAH Chargers thunder sticks.

If you can’t make the game, there are many ways to follow the action:

• VIDEO: WCHA TV on America One (subscription – remember that a subscription gets you ALL WCHA games for all teams)
• LIVE STATS: uahchargers.com
• AUDIO: KNSI radio
• TWITTER: @weloveuahhockey (us), @uahhockey (official), @uahchargers (official), @SCSUHUSKIES_MH (official)

TEAM COMPARISON
	2013-14 Stats
0-8-0	Overall record	6-1-1
0-6-0 WCHA	Conference record	3-1-0 NCHC
1.00	Goals per game	2.63
4.50	Goals allowed per game	1.88
16.1	Penalty minutes per game	9.1
3/40 (7.5%)	Power play	3/32 (9.4%)
25/41 (61.0%)	Penalty kill	21/24 (87.5%)
Alex Allan (3-0-3) Chad Brears (3-0-3) Regan Soquila (0-3-3)	Leading scorers	Nic Dowd (4-3-7) Jonny Brodzinski (1-5-6) Kalle Kossila (3-2-5)
Carmine Guerriero (4 GS, 2.94 GAA, .914 SV%) Matt Larose (4 GS, 6.27 GAA, .832, SV%)	Goaltending	Ryan Faragher (7 GS, 1.86 GAA, .931 SV%)

Not only is St. Cloud State the highest-ranked Division I team to ever visit the VBC, the Huskies are coming off a Frozen Four appearance last spring. St. Cloud lost to Quinnipiac in the national semifinals.

As you may have heard, the Huskies feature Huntsville native Nic Dowd. The senior captain has 34 goals and 54 assists in his St. Cloud State career.

At 3-1, the Huskies are currently tied for first place atop the new National Collegiate Hockey Conference with Nebraska-Omaha. St. Cloud is coming off a split at home with Miami last weekend.

UAH and St. Cloud State have one common opponent. The Huskies won 3-2 and tied 2-2 against Bemidji State to open the season in St. Cloud.

St. Cloud State has won all nine meetings against the Chargers. Six of those games were in St. Cloud, including two last season. The first four meetings came all the way back to 1988.

As you may now, Nic Dowd is a Huntsville native who will lead third-ranked St. Cloud State against the Chargers this weekend at the VBC.

More on Dowd will come here on Thursday, but it brings up an interesting question: How many players from Huntsville have played college hockey but not for UAH?

Dowd is the third player to do so. The first was Carey Gandy, who played goaltender for Dartmouth from 1981-84.*

The second was James Patterson, who played four years for Denver from 1995-99. Patterson played 141 games for the Pioneers, scoring 45 goals and 94 points, and helped them win the 1999 WCHA playoff championship. Patterson played for the Huntsville Channel cats in 1999-2000 and 2003-04, and captained the Huntsville Havoc from 2004-08.

But Denver never played UAH during that time, so Dowd was the first to face his hometown team last season when the Chargers visited St. Cloud. He’ll be the first to do so in Huntsville this weekend.

Two other Huntsville natives are currently playing in Division III. Hunter Brown is a junior defenseman for St. Norbert, which won the national championship in 2012. Erick Ware is another junior defenseman for Potsdam.

So that’s five, which oddly enough is the number of Huntsville natives to see ice time for the Chargers since UAH hockey became a varsity program in 1985: Tacoma Kapustka*, Matt Parker, Jared Ross, Blake Thompson, and Troy Maney.**

High-ranking visitors: At No. 3 in the USCHO.com poll and No. 4 in the USA Today/USA Hockey Magazine poll St. Cloud will be the highest-ranked Division I opponent to ever visit the Von Braun Center.

The highest until this weekend was Nov. 13-14, 2009, when No. 5 UMass Lowell came to town and won 3-1 and 4-0.

Rarely do top-10 teams — or ranked teams in general — come to Huntsville. UAH has hosted only 10 games (five series) against ranked opponents since returning to Division I in 1998. The Chargers are 1-8-1 in those games, with the one win coming against No. 20 Niagara on Feb. 23, 2008.

The tie came the last time a top-10 team visited Huntsville: A 2-2 draw against No. 8 Bemidji State on March 6, 2010.

The only time UAH beat a top-10 opponent was when the Chargers shocked No. 5 Notre Dame, 3-2 in South Bend on Oct. 9, 2009.

Promotions: For Friday night’s game, kids 12 and under can help local area food banks by bringing a canned food item and receiving free admission. This is sponsored by Spirit Coach.

On Saturday, the first 1,000 fans will receive a pair of UAH Chargers thunder sticks.

Friday luncheon: The third Blue Line Club luncheon of the year will take place this Friday at noon in the Varsity Room in Spragins Hall.

St. Cloud State head coach Bob Motzko will be the special guest speaker. UAH coach Mike Corbett will follow to talk about this weekend’s series.

Terranova’s will be catering the lunch, which is $8 at the door but free to Blue Line Club members.

* Thanks to UAH hockey alumni Paul Scott and Bud McLaughlin for providing corrections and updates. If you know of any others I may have missed, email me at m@uahhockey.com.
** This may be on the test.

Alaska-Anchorage broke open a one-goal game with four power-play goals in the third period to beat UAH 6-1 on Saturday.

The Seawolves scored five power play goals, three of them during a four-minute stretch after Matt Salhany’s five-minute charging penalty and Craig Pierce’s slashing penalty. It turned a two-goal UAH deficit into the rout.

UAH scored the first goal of the game, but not without confusion. Chad Brears drove to the net to the right side of UAA goaltender Rob Gunderson, and a pileup in front of the goal ensued.

The goal light went on, and after the officials discussed, Brears was awarded his third goal of the season at the 8:12 mark. Regan Soquila notched his third assist of the year, and Cody Marooney got an assist for this first point as a Charger.

But as been the case so far this season, the Chargers did not keep the lead for long. Just 16 seconds later, the Seawolves take it down the UAH end and Scott Allen gets the puck past UAH goaltender Matt Larose to tie the game at 1-1.

UAH has had four leads this season for a combined three minutes and nine seconds.

With 3:41 left in the opening period, UAA’s Brad Duwe checked Brandon Carlson hard into the boards near the left wing corner of the Charger zone. Carlson was a little shaken up, and Duwe was given a checking from behind major penalty and a game misconduct.

The Chargers had good puck movement on the ensuing power play, and peppered Gunderson with eight shots before the end of the period. However, Gunderson stopped them all to keep the game tied at intermission. UAA killed off the rest of the penalty to start the second period.

After a scuffle sent Craig Pierce of UAH and Austin Coldwell of UAA to the box, Anderson White was called for holding to set up a 4-on-3 Seawolf power play. With the open ice, Matt Bailey was able to poke poke past the stick side of Larose to give Alaska-Anchorage the lead at 2-1 at the 9:43 mark of the second.

Anchorage made it 3-1 to start the third period with another power play goal. Graeme Strukoff was called for roughing at the end of the second.

Then came Salhany’s penalty in front of the Charger penalty box, and the game got away from there. UAA outshot UAH 13-3 in the third period and 28-19 for the game.

UAH next hosts St. Cloud State at the Von Braun Center next Friday and Saturday.

Carmine Guerriero did all he could to keep the Chargers in the hunt, but UAH could only muster a late shorthanded goal in a 3-1 at Alaska-Anchorage.

While UAH’s freshman goaltender made 30 saves, the offense could only get 14 shots on net. Alex Allan’s breakaway goal with 1:56 to go — UAH’s first shorthanded goal since Sebastian Geoffrion’s tally against New Hampshire on Nov. 26, 2011 — denied UAA’s Rob Gunderson the shutout.

At least the Chargers were in the game throughout on a Friday night. They had been blown out on the first three Friday games of the season.

There was lots of action in the first period, but most of it was in the UAH end. Alaska-Anchorage won 10 of 16 faceoffs and benefited from two power plays to mount a 22-5 shots taken advantage (8-4 on goal).

For the most part,  Guerriero was up to the challenge. However, on the second power play, the Seawolves crashed the net and fired away. Guerriero made three straight saves before Brett Cameron put in a rebound to give UAA a 1-0 lead.

Guerriero was still sharp in the second as the Seawolves continued to pressure. Meanwhile, UAH’s few chances to equalize were so close.

Brandon Clowes made a nifty move to put the puck between a defender’s legs, but his shot hit the post. Frank Misuraca hits another post as a Charger power play expired. Gunderson somehow made the stop after going down during a Charger 3-on-1, and then just got a piece on a Cody Marooney shot on a nearly wide-open net. But after two periods, Alaska-Anchorage maintained the 1-0 lead.

Those types of opportunities vanished in the third period. UAH could not get any offensive rhythm, and the Seawolves eventually broke through.

Matt Bailey’s one-timer from the right circle beat Guerriero on the top shelf and made it 2-0 UAA with 15:17 to go in regulation.

Allan got his goal — his third of the season — late in a Seawolves power play to cut the lead to 2-1. He picked off a slow pass from the UAH blue line and took it to the house.

The Chargers’ chance to tie the game was hampered after Anderson White was called for tripping. Scott Allen’s backhanderd shot past Guerriero with 1:28 left sealed the game for UAA.

Game two of the series is later Saturday at 10:07 Central Time.