Despite having a two-goal lead twice in the game, the Wisconsin Badger Men’s hockey team fell 4-3 on the road in East Lansing to Big Ten opponent, Michigan State.
Scoring opened up a little over halfway through the first period. Wisconsin Freshman, Will Johnson split two defenders on a dump and chase and found himself in front of the net sliding the puck past MSU’s goalie Jake Hildebrand.
The Badgers offense kept clicking as defenseman, Jake Linhart tallied his fourth goal of the year to give Wisconsin a comfortable two-goal lead in the first period. Linharts goal was pretty after tic tac toe passing on a 3 on 1 rush lead to the easy goal.
Sparty would not give Wisconsin much time to think about their lead as they cut it in half seconds after Linharts goal. Brennan Sanford found himself on the winning end of a 2 on 1 rush putting the puck right past a sprawling Matt Jurusik.
Matthew Freytag would give the Badgers their second two-goal lead of the game scoring with 8:53 to go in the second. The goal was Freytag’s third in the last two games.
Down 2, the pressure was on and Sparty responded nicely. Despite some good looks for Wisconsin, the score remained 3-1 until Travis Walsh got one to fall fifty seconds after the Badger goal.
The Badgers looked to hold on to the lead till the third period but with just under four minutes to play, MSU’s captain, Michael Ferrantino poked one past Jurusik to tie the game going into the third period.
The Badgers showed great fight in the third period. Matt Jurusik held tough facing a peppering of shot from MSU’s potent attack. A pair of back to back saves with under five minutes left kept the Badgers tied.
The tie would not last too much longer. MSU put home the game winner with 3:13 thanks to the assistant captain Justin Hoomaian. The Badgers pulled their goalie with a little over one minute to play but the last second flurry of attacks could not do it.
UW Head Coach, Mike Eaves looks to rally the troops and attempt to split the series tomorrow at 1:30 PM CT against the same Michigan State team.
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