CHICAGO - The D1 Drury Panthers hockey team are back in town after a whirlwind weekend in Chicago  where they played 3 games in 3 days. They won their first two in grand style but lost their third  to the Ohio Bobcats who were ranked 2nd in the nation going into the tournament. The Panthers first loss after a 16 game winning streak.

As usual, all the games showed how balanced our Panthers are. In the first game they were absolutely tenacious as they stormed the Arizona State Sun Devils, outshooting them significantly even though they had 8 penalties with 5 of them coming in the third period. St. Clair and Truchan topped the penalty list with 2 each in the third. But in the 6-2 win it was the scoring that really tells the story of the balance on the the team with 6 different scorers finding the back of the net - Menard opened the scoring followed by Bowser, Aston, St. Clair, Johnston, Garcia and Horiachka. Kudos have to once again go to Garcha who has been lighting it up recently as along with his goal he had 3 assists for a 4 point night. Assists also went to O' Rourke (who was welcomed back to the lineup after braking his wrist against U of Mary- picking up right where he left off), Beaupre, Kosec, Walters, Johnston and Sadownyk (2).

The second game against a perennial powerhouse in Jamestown was a real struggle even though the 6-3 score might tend to indicate the opposite. It wasn't until the empty net goal on a shot by Nolan Bowsher with his second of the night from his own end that sealed the game. Again, it was clearly a team effort as it was Young-Menard who opened the scoring, followed by Walters, Bowsher, Beaupre, Horiachka and Bowsher. Kudos also have to go to Garcha and Ravenstein who were instrumental in setting up 2 goals apiece. Other assist went to Beaupre, Brewer, St. Clair, Gale, Aston and Sterling-Ponech. A hard fought game that the announcer kept repeating that it was the type of outcome he didn't expect from a very young team in only their 2nd year in D1 and with only 1 senior and 1 graduate student on their roster.

Then unfortunately came their third game against the #2 ranked Ohio Bobcats and a 6-2 loss - their first of the season. Quite frankly they didn't look like the same team that played Jamestown. The Panthers were totally dominated in the first period and were lucky to come away only be down 2. Ohio played like a team, passed as they clearly didn't want to come out of the tournament with at least 1 win having lost to both Nevada Las Vegas and Jamestown. Coach Law must have laid down the law during the 1st intermission, because our Panthers mounted a brief comeback in the 2nd with Garcha scoring (assisted by Walters and Sterling Ponech) and then Gale and St.Clair combining on a stunning short handed goal bringing the team within 1 goal. It looked like the Panthers might be heading for one of the infamous comebacks, but it was not to be. A bad bounce lead to Ohio scoring with 27 seconds left in the second which seemed to crush the fight out of the Panthers. As Coach Law has stated, he hopes that they learn from this experience, that against the really good teams they have to come out hard and play from the first puck drop to the last whistle.