No. 18 Arizona hockey defeats Williston State 5-4 in a shootout

After about a month off from games, No. 18 Arizona (13-9-0) beat Williston State (8-6-1) 5-4, 1-0 in a shoot out Thursday night.

“A win is a win, we’ll take it; the first game back, we’ll take the win for sure,” head coach Sean Hogan said.

Arizona trailed for the last five minutes of regulation until junior forward Ansel Ivens-Anderson scored the game-saving goal with 48 seconds left on a power play.

After a scoreless five-minute overtime, Arizona won the three-man shoot out 1-0 after junior goalie Steven Sisler stopped the Tetons three times and freshman forward Bryan Drazner scored the game winner.

“It was good that we battled back and got the win,” Slugocki said. “I don’t think we should have been in that position though, we let up some weak defensive goals that definitely are fixable and we need to come back [Friday] against Minot and have a much better effort.”

Sisler made 22 saves in his first game action since Nov. 17.

“He kept us in there,” Hogan said. “I didn’t think the goals were bad goals. He stayed right with the puck during the shoot out and left them with nothing and got the job done for us.”

Williston State scored first, about five and a half minutes in on a power play.
A minute and a half later, sophomore forward Jason Effertz answered with a goal assisted by sophomore forward Mike Ferreira.

“I thought we had a lot of chances, their goalie played well,” Hogan said. “All four lines contributed for the most part.”

Arizona took the lead via a behind the back goal by freshman defenseman Kyle Ambrosie with 8:38 left in the first.

The Tetons tied it with 5:09 left in the first frame with a power play goal, during the first of two back to back Arizona penalties. The Wildcats killed the other.

During the second, senior forward Jared Lowell put Arizona up 3-2 with a power play goal with about eight minutes left.

Arizona was 2-4 on power plays and out shot Williston State 46-26.

“After having so much time off, it was a little sloppy, we wanted to be more crisp,” Hogan said.

UA will host No. 4 Minot State (14-4-0) on Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m. at the Tucson Convention Center in one of the UA’s most important series of the year.

“Minot’s very good, they’re big, strong, fast,” Hogan said. “It’ll be an uphill climb for us for sure.”