Portage County Gazette

By John Kemmeter

The top-ranked University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point (UWSP) men’s hockey team ran its win streak to 15 games and remained unbeaten on the season with a 4-1 win over UW-Superior at a sold-out K.B. Willett Arena Saturday, Feb. 2.

The Pointers (21-0-2, 6-0-0) will play their final home game of the regular season and have a chance to clinch the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WIAC) Title against UW-Stout (13-9-1, 0-5-1) at 7 p.m. Friday, Feb. 8, then will play at third-ranked UW-Eau Claire (18-3-2, 4-1-1) in the regular-season finale at 7 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 9.

“We have a train, and it’s rolling right now,” said UWSP senior defenseman and captain Stephan Beauvais. “You feel good and confident going to play, and we prepare all week for these two games.

“We’re coming down to the wire right now, we’ve got two games left in the regular season, so this was a big win at home,” he said. “Willett was packed and we took care of business tonight, and it was fun.”

“I could tell right from the beginning that this is just a special group, not only with their skill, but also their personalities and their buy in and their character,” said UWSP men’s hockey head coach Tyler Krueger. “It’s a group that, you can go right down the list of players, that they could be playing on other teams and they’d be in the Top 10 in scoring, they’d be playing 30 minutes a night, playing on the power play, but they wouldn’t be winning. And they’ve made that unselfish decision, that they want to win as a group.

“It’s been a commitment to the team, whatever it takes, nobody cares who gets the credit, as long as the end result is there for the guys,” he said. “So it’s been a fun, fun group to be around this year, and they just take it day-by-day and take the next step and they embrace any challenge that’s in front of us.”

Brennen Miller (back), Austin Kelly (left), B.J. Duffin (14) and Chris Allemon (15) celebrate after Kelly scored 1:58 into the third period to give the top-ranked UWSP men’s hockey team a 3-0 lead over UW-Superior, in the Pointers’ 4-1 win at K.B. Willett Arena Saturday, Feb. 2. (John Kemmeter photo)

UWSP opened last week at Stout Friday, Feb. 1, where the game remained tied at 0-0 entering the second period, when senior forward B.J. Duffin scored on an assist from Beauvais to give the Pointers a 1-0 lead at the 8:46 mark of the period.

Senior forward Tanner Karty struck with a goal at the 16:08 mark of the second period on assists from junior forward Kelly O’Brien and senior defenseman Ryan Bittner to make it 2-0, then Karty scored again 52 seconds into the third period on assists from Beauvais and junior forward Luke McElhenie to push the lead to 3-0.

Stout scored with 6:08 left in regulation to provide the final margin in UWSP’s 3-1 win, as freshman goalie Eli Billing made 24 saves for the Pointers in the win.

“We had the bye week last week, so we had a little bit of a rest, and then we came back in Stout and we were rusty,” said Krueger. “The effort was there, but just things weren’t clicking here and there.

“It showed we had the bye week, and so we wanted to challenge the guys and clean a few facets of the game up (against Superior), and just more mentally be a little bit quicker into it,” he said.

The Pointers were back home to play Superior (7-13-3, 1-3-2) Saturday night, where sophomore defenseman Steven Quagliata scored with 5:28 to play in the first period on an assist from Karty to give the team a 1-0 lead.

Sophomore forward Zach Zech scored on an assist from McElhenie at the 10:20 mark of the second period to increase the lead 2-0, while junior forward Austin Kelly scored 1:58 into the third period on assists from Quagliata and junior forward Brennen Miller to make it 3-0.

Superior scored at the 4:00 mark of the third period to close within 3-1, but Karty scored on an assist from O’Brien with 2:44 remaining to close the scoring on the Pointers’ 4-1 win, as sophomore goalie Connor Ryckman made 19 saves in the win in front of a crowd of 1,872.

“It’s unbelievable,” said Karty of the crowd. “It’s something that we cherish, and I think we kind of realize there’s not a ton of them left, so we kind of soak them in a little bit more than some other guys.”

“We got our game going that we wanted to, and really pushing the pace and having them battle in their own zone and kind of wearing them down by the end of the second period,” said Krueger. “It was a good team win overall.”

The Pointers will be back home Friday to take on Stout for Senior Night, as UWSP will honor its six seniors in Beauvais, Bittner, Duffin, Karty, TJ Roo and Ethan Strong.

“They’re huge, in a lot of different ways,” said Krueger. “We have five of them that have been here for their four years, and TJ Roo we added this year from Bemidji.

“Those five seniors are the last ones that were part of that National Championship in 2016, they’re the last ones that know what it feels like, know what it takes to get there, so they’ve been kind of our cog all year long, of being the veterans who know what it takes to get there, how to get it done, and they’ve been a group that has really left the place in a better spot than when they found it,” he said. “We were a very good team obviously when they came in, but we’ve taken that next step culture-wise, in bringing the kids in and the way we play the game, and they’re a huge, huge part of it, each in their own way.”

The Pointers will close the regular season at Eau Claire Saturday night, after they won 3-1 over Eau Claire at K.B. Willett Arena Jan. 18.

UWSP will have off the following weekend for the first round of the WIAC Championship/Commissioner’s Cup, as the fourth seed will host the fifth seed Feb. 15 and 16, while the Pointers will be at home for the WIAC Semifinals Friday and Saturday, Feb. 22 and 23.

The WIAC Championship Game is scheduled for Saturday, March 2, with the NCAA Tournament set to begin March 9.

This season there is not a pre-determined site for the NCAA Division III Frozen Four March 22 and 23, as the host will be chosen during the NCAA Tournament, with the primary considerations given to the highest remaining seeded team, with region of the remaining teams also a factor.

“Every time I come to one of these games and it’s a sellout, I feel like it’s actually bigger than the one before,” said Krueger. “Every time it feels like the biggest crowd I’ve ever seen, and that’s our goal, to have next Saturday be our last away game throughout the year.

“With the NCAA Tournament being at a host site this year instead of it pre-determined, it’s been our goal all year long to have it here at the Willett, to have that type of atmosphere,” he said. “The guys feed off the crowd, right from the get-go, the crowd was into it, they love it and it’s a fun, fun place to play.”