One night after upsetting No. 11 Illinois in a shoot out, Wildcat hockey completed the sweep and handed the Fighting Illini their first regulation loss by a score of 3-1 on Saturday.

“We were really happy with the game yesterday [Friday], getting the tough W in the shoot out,” Junior forward Ansel Ivens-Anderson said. “We came in today really just wanting to make a real change in the hockey program, make a big Division I sweep and so all the guys were just really ready to go.”

It is the Wildcats’ first sweep of a Division I opponent in two years and a rare road over a ranked foe in the last few years for UA.

Ivens-Anderson scored two goals and junior forward Andrew Murmes scored the other.

“That line of Ansel, Murmes and [senior forward Brian] Slugocki have really put up some numbers for us, scoring a goal or two every game we’ve played,” head coach Sean Hogan said. “Today Ansel did a really brilliant job for us. He really showed that he’s a next level player.”

The Wildcats were short handed, missing sophomore forward Mike Ferreira, who was suspended, junior forward Eric Watters, who had a concussion and freshman Mike Adamowicz, who scored a regular goal and a shoot out goal on Friday, was knocked out of the game in the third period.

“It was a great game, we really battled hard, everybody on the team contributed,” Hogan said. “We really grinded it out.”

Junior goalie Steven Sisler had 24 saves.

“For the second night in a row Steve Sisler played really, really well,” Hogan said.

Arizona led nearly the whole game, going up 1-0, then 2-0 and went up 3-1 in the third period.

“We went out there and played 60 minutes of really tough hockey and we managed to score on our opportunities,” Ivens-Anderson said. “And our goalie Sisler along with our defense had just a great game, so an all around team effort to get to the win.”
Both the Wildcats were 0-2 on the power play.