Despite two goals off power plays in the third period, Texas A&M ice hockey lost 4-2 to Texas in front of a packed arena during the Lone Star Showdown at Spirit Ice Arena on Nov. 8. The Saturday loss followed a 3-2 road win against Texas on Friday. A&M is now 13-4-1 for the season.
It took over 50 minutes of gameplay for the Aggies to get the puck into the net.
“We approached [the game] the same way as last night,” nuclear engineering senior forward Nicholas Leone said. “Honestly, that was a weird game. We outshot them. It just wasn’t going, and hopefully next time we can put it in the net.”
The first period was a blizzard of sticks, which led to fights and repeated power plays for both teams. The Aggies led off with a scoreless power play, while the Longhorns capitalized on a power play to take a 1-0 lead.
At the start of the second period, the Maroon and White struggled to put pressure on the Longhorns. Texas scored again on a power play for a 2-0 lead. A&M was unable to answer on two consecutive power plays, while Texas scored twice in the final eight minutes to lead 4-0.
With one period remaining, A&M had to flip the script and bring the energy, visualization freshman defenseman Ilya Manalo said.
“When you’re down four, got 1,000 people in the crowd, the last thing you want to do is go out there looking like you don’t care,” Manalo said. “We knew if we didn’t bring 100% to start the third, we’re done.”
On the fourth power play of the third period, economics senior F Jacob Smith scored A&M’s first goal of the night, assisted by nuclear engineering senior F Mason Burdett, cutting Texas’ lead to 4-1.
“We rallied in the locker room before the third period and made sure we weren’t feeling sorry for ourselves,” Burdett said.
With under a minute left, Blinn freshman F Konstantin Deshevyy got one back to make it 4-2. In the final seconds, A&M pulled its goalie as six forwards pressed for empty-net goals but could not score.
Going forward, the team can’t rely on the final period to try to make a comeback, Leone said.
“We need to be ready to play,” Leone said. “We can’t come out sleeping in the first two periods, or else this will happen where we’re trying to catch up.”
The Aggies will travel to Richardson StarCenter on Sunday, Nov. 16, at 4:30 p.m. to face off against the SMU Mustangs
