Eagles Moving Up
February 1, 2009
The Eastern Michigan Eagles continue to move up in the CSCHL standings (5th) and the ACHA Rankings (25th) with no signs of letting up. This past weekend the Kent State Golden Flashes were sent back to Kent, Ohio empty handed as EMU won all eight league points.
The first game on Friday saw the Eagles trailing by a 3-0 deficit. Then Joe Schweiger would score with 3:33 left in the first, ending the period 3-1. In the second it only took Chris DeRoche 3:28 to draw the Eagles within one when he scored on the power play from Ian Chornoby and Rodney Stewart. Less than two minutes later Joe Schweiger would net his own power play to even the score. Eastern's Jeremy Osburn would then put his team ahead scoring at the 6:48 mark. Before the period was over Joe Schweiger would get his hat trick with DeRoche's help (again on the power play) and freshman David Palmer continued his point streak scoring with 3:47 left. That ended the second with the Eagles ahead 6-3. In the third, Eastern felt they had the game in control but Kent State was relentless and finally scored with 4:14 left then added another goal at the end of the game buzzer to make the final 6-5 in favor of EMU.
Saturday's game was expected to be a tough contest and did not disappoint. Joe Schweiger opened the scoring on the power play at the 8:57 mark. DeRoche and Chornoby assisted. Then with 5:25 left, Joakim Nilsson added another goal making the score 2-0. Eastern then went on the power play but a break down of the power play unit allowed two Kent State shorthanded goals. That ended the period tied, 2-2. In the second, it was Jon Sutton who opened the scoring. He took a pass from Schweiger and Desana on the power play. Less than two minutes later, Kevin Lapointe added another goal to put the Eagles ahead 4-2. As the teams entered the third, the Eagles continued to play strong but Kent State added two goals at the 4:46 and 11:20 marks. With the score even and time winding down, it looked like the teams would go to overtime, but Jeremy Osburn had a different idea and scored the game winner with 45 seconds left. The assists went to Joe Schweiger and Chris DeRoche. Ryan McCormick added an empty netter to make the final 6-4 in favor of Eastern. Rob Cupit again played extremely stong in net, making key saves. On Friday he stopped 40 shots and on Saturday 24.
Next up for EMU is another eight point weekend against Robert Morris Illinois. Depending on what happens with the other teams, Eastern needs 10 or less of their final 16 CSCHL points to make the league playoffs.