Arizona hockey upsets No. 8 Oakland 4-3, again

By JAMES KELLEY Published November 13, 2012 at 1:43am Updated November 13, 2012 at 1:43am

For the second night in a row, Arizona hockey blew a 3-0 lead but beat No. 8 Oakland 4-3 on Saturday.

No. 16 Arizona (7-7-0) swept the Grizzlies (9-6-2) to end its slump, where it lost five of its last six games.

“We’re learning how to win,” head coach Sean Hogan said. “You don’t want to see what happened there with penalties.”

For the second night in a row, senior forward Brian Slugocki scored a quick goal, this one about two minutes in, and was assisted by junior forwards Andrew Murmes and Ansel Ivens-Anderson.

“We kinda gave them too many opportunities to get back in both nights, but really happy about how the team managed to stick together and get two wins,” Ivens-Anderson said.

With 3:20 left in the first, Murmes scored a short-handed and unassisted goal.

About midway through the second period, freshman defenseman Kyle Ambrosie scored a goal with a two-man advantage. Senior defenseman Nick Stolz was credited with the assist.

Unlike on Friday night, when Slugocki, Murmes and Ivens-Anderson had all the points except one, including a natural hat trick by Slugocki, on Saturday four different Wildcats had goals.

“I think it really opened everything up and helped everything out and I think if we continue like this, we should be good next week,” Ivens-Anderson said.

With 3:26 left in the second, OU got on the board with a power play goal.

About a minute later, Ivens-Anderson answered with a power play goal assisted by Slugocki in what would turn out to be the game winner.

Last week Arizona lost 7-1 and 3-1 to No. 1 ASU.

“This is really big, especially after last weekend, getting swept at home,” Ivens-Anderson said. “We felt that we played really well Saturday and wanted to carry it over to this weekend and we all think we did and hopefully we can continue that next week in Oklahoma.”

Arizona’s last sweep was over then-No. 11 Illinois on the road on Oct. 13. Arizona’s only other series sweep was over Division II NAU.

The two wins are Arizona’s first sweep of a top ten team since 2005, when it swept No. 6 Weber State. “It’s been a long time here, so it’s a big win for our program, we wanted to make a statement this weekend that we’re a top team,” Hogan said.