After a week delay, the Texas A&M took to the ice against the Texas Longhorns to settle some good ol’ fashion hatred.
The postponed match finally commenced Friday at Ice Spirit Arena, and the Aggies came out on top 5-2.
To open the match, A&M (6-5) had multiple missed opportunities to score, and the Longhorns (5-5) took advantage with 10:40 left in the first period. A second goal was quickly scored for the Longhorns only a minute later. Finally, the Aggies used a power play to get a score, but was then waved off by the referee. With less than a minute remaining, the Aggies were officially able to get on the board before the end of the period with a goal by Ty Walsh, making it 2-1.
“We started slow for the first ten minutes, they just came out flying and then we kind of rallied there and got the late goal,” Walsh said. “We knew talent wise we had them, there a good team, but we just knew we could beat them. We came out and just played the best we could.”
The second period opened slow with action finally coming to a halt when a near-fight broke out among the clubs. Both teams had a player sit, which leveled the playing field to merely four players on the ice for each team.
Again, the Aggies scored on a power play that was evoked by the referees. To bring the Aggies life, a score by Chris Shultz with 5:22 left evened the score at 2-2 and A&M was able to follow with another goal to give the Aggies their first lead of the night.
Walsh started the pace off strong for the Aggies in the third period with his second goal of the night. Shultz tagged another quick Aggie score to take a 5-2 lead over the Longhorns. A&M made some advances on the fatigued Longhorn defense but many saves by the Longhorns’ goalie kept the Aggies from adding more points on the board. As the bell rung to conclude the match, a mini-brawl broke out but was quickly resolved.
“The [Texas] game is the game where we always bring out most of the fans,” Robby Grathwohl said. “But I think the biggest thing was we got off to a real slow start and we looked really shaken at first but it was really nice to get the boys back together and made sure we had a real strong finish at the end.”
A&M will continue its season in Dallas, Texas, against the SMU Mustangs at 3:15 p.m. on Nov. 14 and the following day to conclude the series at 4:30 p.m.
