Huskies sweep Alabama Huntsville with 4-1 win Saturday

• Game Highlights
• Coach Shawhan Interview

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. – The Michigan Tech hockey team earned its first sweep of the season in its first WCHA series, defeating Alabama Huntsville 4-1 Saturday (Nov. 3) at the Von Braun Center. Jake Lucchini had two goals and an assist, Keegan Ford added a goal and an assist, and Greyson Reitmeier also scored.

The Huskies have now won three of their last four games to improve to 3-3 overall. They are 3-1 halfway through their eight-game road trip.

"It's important to get this start in league play," Tech coach Joe Shawhan said. "We come out of this with a little bit of confidence, and it feels good to win on a Saturday night.

"I really liked our third period. We controlled the play and created offense in transition. I really liked the way the guys finished up. It was by far our best period of the night."

Tech jumped out to a 3-0 lead. After a scoreless first period, Keegan Ford buried his first of the season 47 seconds into the second. Jake Lucchini had a drop pass to Ford similar to the Alex Smith and Colin Swoyer hookup on Friday. It was Ford's second career goal with Trenton Bliss adding the secondary assist.

Lucchini scored his first of the season and 36th of his career just under 7:00 later on the power play. He caught a pass from Smith across the blue line and ripped a quick snapshot from the faceoff dot to the right of UAH goaltender Mark Sinclair for the 2-0 lead. Ford added the second assist.

Reitmeier made it 3-0 26 seconds into the third, again on the power play, as he redirected a shot by Seamus Donohue for the second tally of his sophomore campaign. Swoyer also assisted to extend his point streak to four games.

UAH (0-10-0, 0-4-0 WCHA) got on the board with 5:53 left in the game on a power-play goal by Madison Dunn. A backdoor pass went off of a Tech defenseman's skate and in. Hans Gorowsky and John Teets assisted.

The Chargers pulled their goaltender with 2:17 left in the game for the extra attacker. The Huskies surrendered only one shot down the stretch before Lucchini broke free for a breakaway goal into the open net with 10 seconds left.

Tech outshot UAH 29-23. Goaltender Matt Jurusik made 22 saves for the Huskies with five in the first, eight in the second, and nine in the third. He had a pair of tremendous saves in the second, stopping the Chargers on a cross-ice one-timer 4:30 into the frame and with 1:36 left on a shorthanded breakaway.

Sinclair had 25 saves for the Chargers. Gavin Gould did manage to get the puck past Sinclair 3:39 into the game, but the officials had blown the whistle before the puck crossed the goal line.

The Huskies were 2-for-5 on the power play and currently rank seventh in the nation, scoring on 28.6 percent of their chances.

Tech travels to Ferris State next weekend (Nov. 9-10) for a WCHA series at the Ewigleben Ice Arena.

"We want to have a good week of practice and go into our third straight week on the road with a good effort," added Shawhan.

The puck will drop at 7:07 p.m. both nights in Big Rapids.