A Weekend With Washington State

After four consecutive losses, the USC Trojans finally found their stride and reaped the benefits of having back-to-back ten goal games. The Trojans defeated Washington State 10-2 Friday night and 10-1 Saturday night.

Sergei "Serge" Liberovsky was the Trojan in net that could not be beat Saturday night as Washington made a valiant effort to make a comeback from the previous evening.

What caused this team to score 20 goals over the course of two games after losing four?

Regarding the turn of events this past weekend, alternate captain Noah Comisar feels that “[…] only having five or six practices under our belt, we have a lot to develop. This weekend we switched up the lines a bit because the lines for the first four games weren’t creating the chemistry we needed to produce out there.”

After a not so stellar start to the season this shake up clearly had a positive impact on the players. The chemistry that these new lines created was positively reflected on the scoreboard this past weekend.

“I attribute this weekend’s two wins towards a rash of self-confidence we hadn’t had prior and unselfish play all around,” said alternate captain Dante Caravaggio. “People came to the games hungry to win.”

This hunger was refreshing to finally see as the Trojans battled for the puck in an unprecedented way thus far in the season. They played a physical game where they finished their checks and truly made an effort to score and play as a team.

Adam Zacuto personally had an unbelievable weekend as he scored a hat trick (three goals in one game) in both games against Washington State. When asked about what led to his personal success, Zacuto was quick to share his success with his linemates, “I think I benefited personally from the new line combinations we went with this weekend. Both James Huebner and Cory Neuman gave me some great passes and they definitely contributed to my personal success and the points our line put up.”

Zacuto gave it his all on Saturday and even received a 10-minute game misconduct along with two extra minutes for unsportsmanlike conduct when he was involved in a scuffle on the ice. Although he was out of commission for twelve minutes, the passion he played with on Saturday was greatly appreciated by all in the arena.

Looking to the future, Comisar said, “We still have yet to prove ourselves as a team that can compete with the best in our league. I’m hoping that the monkey is off our back.”

Whether it was as easy as switching up the lines, receiving a bit of luck, or just plain old timing the USC Trojans have now proved that they have what it takes to get the puck to the net. There is no going back for this team who faces their cross-town rivals UCLA this Saturday at The Rinks in Anaheim, California at 7:30. Fight on!

Trojans vs. 49ers October 6, 2011

It was another loss for the USC Trojans as they fell for a second time to the Long Beach State 49ers last night 5-0.

The first period looked extremely promising, as the Trojans came out looking like they were playing to win. There was a fighting energy that permeated throughout the entire arena that gave everyone hope that this game would end in USC’s favor. SC’s starting goalie, Alex Caravaggio, was solid in net. He looked calm and confident as Long Beach kept getting pucks to the net. There were some fantastic checks as SC battled for the puck. Unfortunately, after a scoreless first period, Long Beach scored with two minutes and nine seconds left to the period. It was at this moment the energy on SC’s bench changed and never recovered.

Three minutes into the second period, Long Beach scored again making the score 2-0. The energy continued to drop and the team was just not able to recover the game. Forward Anthony Dragatto said, “We were outplayed. We were out-hustled, and we got out-shot. We were not confident with the puck especially at the blue line.” This was extremely apparent throughout the rest of the game, as the team continued to allow three more goals to be scored.

Defenseman Dante Caravaggio feels that the lines have yet to find their scoring rhythm, “I’d say our lines have been slow to develop chemistry against these tough opponents (SDSU, CSUF and CSULB all nationally ranked last year), but our intensity is constantly improving. If we keep things simple, we’ll start scoring. Alex is one of the best goaltenders on the west coast, but we have to score to win games.”

The score is a perfect reflection of what went wrong. The team was shut out because they failed to get the puck to the net. The fight for the puck that they showed in the first fifteen minutes of the first period completely disappeared after Long Beach scored one goal. The goalie is only able to do so much, and the rest of the work falls on the team to keep the puck in the opponent’s zone and eventually in their net. If A. Caravaggio, who last year was voted to the All PAC 8 First Team as the league’s best goalie, had not played the way he did, the score could have been a lot worse.

The Trojans will hopefully find more of a scoring rhythm tonight as they take on Washington State University at The Rinks in Anaheim, California tonight at 8:30pm, and tomorrow night at 7:30pm.

USC Roster for Oct 1 CSUF game

USC roster for the CSUF game on Saturday, October 1:

Forwards

5 Peters, Derek

6 Griesbach, Hank

7 Knight, David

9 Huebner, James

12 Morris, Dave

13 Waschenfelder, Thomas

16 Kucinski, Ryan

17 Bieber, Justin

18 Zacuto, Adam

21 Newman, Corey

22 Roman, Chris

23 Draggoto, Anthony

26 Comisar, Noah

Defense

2 Caravaggio, Dante

4 Hite, Alex

14 Manning, Ryan

15 Mowrey, Mike

20 Walker, Luke

22 Roman, Chris

28 Duffy, Tom

Goalies

1 Caravaggio, Alex

33 Xu, Harrison