Well, we knew that tonight was about being on a national stage. The UAH cheerleaders should send some kit to Anson Carter, because he sung our praises all night long, starting with Mike Corbett at the top and going through the rest of the lineup. Unfortunately for the Chargers, those were most of the main highlights on the play on a night that saw Bryan Rust net a hat trick for the Fighting Irish (10-8-1), who got goals from four other players for a 7-1 victory over UAH (1-22-0).
UAH was down early again, with Robbie Russo roofing a puck just :38 in past UAH goaltender Matt Larose (0-12-0, 30SV). The boys weathered the storm after that, but two goals in 2:05 in the middle of the first left the Chargers facing an 0-3 deficit.
Notre Dame dominated the second period with an 18-4 shots-on-goal advantage, and the score at the end of the middle 20:00 reflected it. You didn’t feel that the Chargers were out of it until the fifth goal, when the Irish had a power play because of a weak call against Regan Soquila for charging at UND netminder Chad Katunar (2-1-0, 16SV) when he was really just crashing the net and made just incidental contact. Unfortunately for UAH, Carter was not wearing an orange armband over the killer suit that he was wearing, and you knew that the Chargers, who have now scored just 23 goals on the season, were not going to summon the thunder of Thor to smite the Irish down.
There were two bright spots for the team, and if you’ve followed along, you can guess them.
- There was no quit in the Chargers. We’ve come to expect that.
- Matt Salhany (3rd goal) was a factor on the forecheck, scoring a goal in the third when he and linemates Joakim Broberg and Brent Fletcher (3rd assist) were mucking “down in the blue”, as Coach Corbett likes to say, after Graeme Strukoff (2nd assist) fed the puck into the scrum.
The teams face off tomorrow night at 6:05 p.m. Huntsville time. As always, UAHHockey.com has info on how to keep up with the Chargers’ third and final game against Notre Dame this season. We hope that you’ll tune in then, when we’ll be hoping for a good Saturday result.