Erie, Pa.—The Mercyhurst Men's Hockey team plays a non-conference series with No. 17 Ohio State this weekend in Columbus.
The Matchup
The Lakers and Buckeyes have played 13 times with the first time being in the 1999-00 season. Ohio State holds the series lead with a 10-2-1 record all-time against Mercyhurst.
The teams last played in 2019 in Erie, the Buckeyes took both games by scores of 7-2 and 3-1. Current Lakers Cade Townend, Steven Ipri, and Dalton Hunter each scored for the Lakers in the two game series.
Quick Let's Recap!
Mercyhurst fell to No. 4 Minnesota by scores of 7-4 and 5-3 on Oct. 8 and 9 to open their season. The Lakers took five of six points over Holy Cross in their first Atlantic Hockey series of the season. In their first road AHA series Mercyhurst fell in the shootout to RIT and lost 3-1 on Oct. 29 and 30. The Lakers took two points at home against Sacred Heart with two shootout losses. On their first trip to east coast the Lakers took four points against Holy Cross on Nov. 12 and 13.
Mercyhurst took three points last weekend as they faced Canisius in a home and home series. On Friday night in Erie the Lakers fell 6-1 with Geoff Kitt scoring the lone goal. Hank Johnson made 38 saves. On Saturday, the Lakers bounced back with a 5-2 win over the Griffs. Five different Lakers scored and Kyle McClellan made 38 saves as he picked up his first win of the season.
Firsts Are Fun
Two weeks ago, in the second game against Holy Cross, both Pierce Crawford and Mickey Burns scored their first goals as Lakers, for Burns it was his first career collegiate goal.
This past weekend, Kyler Head scored his goal as a Laker in the 5-2 win over the Griffins. In the loss on Friday, both Kyler and Wyatt Head notched assists on the Laker goal, this is the first time in the 2000s two players with the same last name have had points on the same goal.
Battle of Special Teams
The Lakers have the ninth best power-play in the nation and have scored 12 times on the man-advantage. Ohio State is 43rd in the country as they have scored just five times on 34 attempts.
Carson Briere leads the team in power-play goals with three while Dante Sheriff, Jonathan Bendorf and Austin Heideman have each scored twice on the power play
Mercyhurst is has killed off 36-51 power plays this season while Ohio State penalty kill has successfully killed off 81.5% of penalties.
The Men that Man the Crease
Both Hank Johnson and Kyle McClellan have played six games in net for the Lakers. Johnson has a 3.73 GAA and a save percentage of .889 with a record of 2-2-. McClellan has made six starts this season he has a 3.59 GAA and a save percentage of .904.
The Laker netminders have had a combined ten games in which they needed to make 30 or more saves and five with 35 or more saves.
That's A LOT of Games
Geoff Kitt played his 99th and 100th career games this pasted weekend. He joined Josh McDougall and Pierce Crawford as the only other Lakers to play 100 collegiate hockey games. Owen Norton is projected to play his 100th game on Friday while Michael Bevilacqua is projected to hit the century mark later this year.
Scouting Ohio State
The Buckeyes are 7-3 this season and 4-2-0 in Big Ten play this season. Ohio State opened their season Atlantic Hockey foe Bentley and fell in the opener 2-1 before defeating the Falcons 7-1 the next night. Since then the Buckeyes have wins over UConn, Michigan State, Penn State, and Minnesota. Along with their loss to Bentley, Ohio State has fell to Minnesota and Michigan State.
Mason Lohrei leads the Buckeyes in points with 13 while Mark Cheremeta and Jake Wise each have seven points. Cheremeta, Wise, Tate Singleton, and Patrick Guzzo each have three goals which is good for second on the team. Gutsaf Westlund leads the team in goals.
Both Jakub Dobes and Ryan Snowden have seen time in net for Ohio State with Dobes playing majority of the minutes. Dobes has a 1.39 goals against average and a .946 save percentage in his nine game (eight starts). Snowden has a 3.53 goals against average and a .878 save percentage.
Up Next
The Lakers play one more Atlantic Hockey series of the calendar year as they head to Bentley to take on the Falcons next weekend.
