After scoring one goal in an aggressive first period, the San Jose State ice hockey team lost focus and allowed Washington State to pull ahead, losing 1-2 Friday at Sharks Ice.
Coach Vaughn Reuter said the team started by playing well and taking advantage of opportunities to score.
“Overall, I think we started losing some of our mental focus and I think that was the Achilles’ heel for us tonight,” Reuter said.
Junior defender Ryan Ellis said the team played well, but that after his goal was called off near the end of the first period, the team stopped clicking.
“I feel like we were applying pressure throughout the whole game, but we just could not find the back of the net for most of it,”
Ellis said.
Senior defender Shayne Smith called the team “unprepared.” “We played trash,” Smith said. He added the team played well in the third period, though.
After several failed pushes toward the Cougars’ net in the second period, the fans in the stands grew impatient, one shouting over and over, “Shoot it, kid!”
Out of the 81 attendees in the bleachers, roughly half of them vocally supported Washington State, occasionally engaging in trash talk and banter with the Spartans’ fans.
Reuter said the Cougars beat the Spartans because they played harder and had a larger, faster team.
“It was a good game,” Reuter said. “They just out-muscled us a little bit.”
Smith said Washington State is not a good team and that SJSU really beat itself.
“We are way better than them and we played down to their level and we let them beat us,” Smith said.
After a scuffle on the ice between the Spartans and the Cougars, junior forward Max Miller collapsed and laid on his chest while a medic came onto the ice to check on him.
After a few minutes, Miller continued to play, but was not available for an interview after the game because a doctor was checking him again.
Despite the rough play leading to an eventual loss, the Spartans started the game strong, aggressively pushing toward the Cougars’ net during the first period to score their first and only goal, shot by junior forward Evan Pace with an assist from Ellis.
Ellis said Pace made the goal happen during the first half of the first period and called it a highlight from the game.
“I chipped the puck up to him and he had wheels and he was going straight up the ice with a lot of speed,” Ellis said.
Coach Reuter said the team succeeded when it transitioned between defense and offense quickly.
Smith pointed toward the team’s offense during the last period as the team’s highlight from the game and said the Spartans probably spent 70% of those last minutes within the Cougars’ zone.
“Their goalie is obviously really good,” Smith said.
Smith said last season the Spartans did not put their full effort into games against “weaker teams” and that the team needs to fix that moving forward.
Players and one of the coaches all said they had high hopes for the rest of the season.
Reuter wants the team to focus on improving one facet of the team every week.
“This schedule does not really relent, so we have to kind of refocus, reset,” he said.
Ellis said the team needs to reinforce each other more and have a more positive attitude for the rest of the season.
“Sometimes we can get down on each other if things are not going our way and that happened tonight,” Ellis said.
Smith said SJSU has a good team this season, but that the team is still getting adjusted to the addition of seven new players.
“I think we could make a run probably at regionals, maybe at nationals if we are lucky,” he said.
