RedHawks blocked from move to first place

Northern Michigan rides goalie’s 40-save effort to a 2-1 victory.

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1:42 AM Saturday, January 28, 2012

By John Boyle

Staff Writer

OXFORD — The Miami University hockey team had a chance to move into first place in the Central Collegiate Hockey Association on Friday night.

Instead, the RedHawks will start the day in fourth.

Visiting Northern Michigan parlayed two first-period goals and 40-save performance from goaltender Jared Coreau into a 2-1 victory over the 17th-ranked RedHawks at Steve Cady Arena.

“Obviously a tough game to lose,” Miami senior co-captain Alden Hirschfeld said. “We had a lot of chances out there. We just had a couple of turnovers that cost us early on. I thought we fought back but their goalie made some big saves.”

The RedHawks outshot the 19th-ranked Wildcats 42-13, but could get only one puck past Coreau, a 6-foot-5, 208-pound sophomore who also beat Miami 2-1 on Dec. 2 at NMU.

“He made a ton of great saves,” Hirschfeld said. “It was one of those nights.”

Miami finally broke through 1:53 into the third period on freshman Blake Coleman’s eighth goal of the season. Coleman won the face-off back to defenseman Chris Wideman at the right point, and beat Coreau on a rebound off a Wideman slapshot.

Northern Michigan’s Justin Florek opened the scoring at the 11:35 mark of the first period on a wright shot from the high slot. The Wildcats made it 2-0 just over four minutes later when Gron split the Miami defense and beat goalie Connor Knapp on a back-hander.

“We didn’t execute,” Miami coach Enrico Blasi said. “They executed two plays and we didn’t. The bottom line is you can get all the chances you want but you’ve got to execute. We did everything but put the puck in the net, but that’s part of it.”

The RedHawks went 0-for-3 on the power play and didn’t commit a penalty for the first time since the 1996-97 season when they did it in two games — Feb. 22, 1997 vs. Michigan State and March 22, 1997 vs. Cornell.

Miami, which came into Friday’s game with wins in five of its last six, fell to 14-11-2 overall and 10-9-2-1 CCHA).

With league-leading Ohio State’s loss to Lake Superior State, a win would’ve moved the RedHawks to the top of the CCHA standings with Western Michigan. Miami enters tonight’s series finale against the Wildcats tied for fourth with LSSU behind WMU, OSU and Ferris State.

NMU improved to 12-8-5, 7-7-5-2.

Today’s game

Who: N. Michigan (12-8-5, 7-7-5-2 CCHA) at Miami (14-11-2, 10-9-2-1)

When: 7:05 p.m.

Where: Steve Cady Arena

TV: ONN

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