Independent Student Newspaper of UW Oshkosh Campuses

The Advance-Titan

Independent Student Newspaper of UW Oshkosh Campuses

The Advance-Titan

Independent Student Newspaper of UW Oshkosh Campuses

The Advance-Titan

Hockey extends winning streak at home

Eric Vela waits in the goal during a UWO home game. Vela and Tony Francois have shared time in the net for the Titans and have a combined 235 saves and an .874 save percentage.
[/media-credit] Eric Vela waits in the goal during a UWO home game. Vela and Tony Francois have shared time in the net for the Titans and have a combined 235 saves and an .874 save percentage.

The UW Oshkosh men’s hockey team extended its winning streak with a weekend sweep of Northern Michigan University on Oct. 7 and 8 during their “pink the rink” fundraiser for breast cancer awareness.
The Titans improved their record to 3-4 overall and 2-2 in conference play.
They used a flurry of first period goals to propel themselves to a 6-3 victory Friday, outscoring NMU 3-1 in the first period.
Anthony Grebe scored one of those goals in the first and then went on to add a powerplay score in the second.
Jason Johnson contributed to the victory by finding open teammates for goals three times throughout the game, totaling three assists.
UWO outshot NMU 60-39, resulting in their highest shots on goal and senior forward Anthony Elsen said the team knew they had to get more shots and disrupt the goalie early, and do it often to pick up more wins.
“Our game plan was to get the puck to the net and create early scoring chances and we did that,” Elsen said.
Reigning conference Player of the Year, goalie Tony Francois stopped 36 of the 39 shots he faced, improving his save percentage to 88 percent for the year.
The game on Saturday was closer than game one, but the Titans managed to win 4-3.
Oshkosh managed to outscore NMU 3-0 in the first period.
NMU responded by scoring two in the second and then followed with a goal with just over a minute into the third to tie the game at three.
Zachary Mattson was then able to put one in the back of the net off of assists from Elsen and JT Smithback with just over six minutes remaining to put the Titans ahead for good.
Grebe led the Titans with two goals putting his season total to six.
Grebe said he gives all of the credit to his teammates for his five goals in two games.
“My linemates Cortland Maxfield and Logan Polack really stepped up and made some heads up plays to get me the puck so they made it pretty easy on my part, all the credit goes to those two,” Grebe said.
Senior captain Owen Ahlstrom said the fast start was key to winning the game.
“We started off really strong by scoring three goals in the first eight minutes,” Ahlstrom said. “Two key players got hurt in the first, that shortened our bench. NMU took that as a momentum swing and kept firing the puck, but we kept our cool going into the third and the hard work prevailed.”
Senior Eric Vela stopped 33 out of 36 shots he faced, improving his save percentage to 87 percent for the year.
Vela said the combination of goalies with him and Francois is going to be huge for the Titans if they want to make the conference tournament.
“I absolutely feel that Tony [Francois] and I looked like our normal selves this weekend,” Vela said. “There was much more poise and control in our games.”
Vela said the team’s main goal is to make it to the postseason tournament at the end of the year, and they know this weekend majorly boosted not only their chances to make the postseason tournament, but also the team’s confidence going further into the season.
“The sweep was very important because it was a conference matchup,” Vela said. “We earned the full six points, which is crucial in deciding who goes onto the tournament. The momentum should help us for this next weekend, when we go to Minnesota to play a tough conference opponent.

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