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Ann Arbor, MI- The Eastern Michigan Eagles defeated the West Virginia Mountaineers on the eve of Penn State by a score of 4-2. The game was fairly entertaining with the band roused up with energy and the half full crowd watching a decent EMU performance. Eastern was dominating West Virginia in all aspects of the game, so the score is a very lackluster judge for how well this game was played in the favor of Eastern Michigan. The defense was stifling, the offense was shooting and did enough to win.

The first period of this game was when Eastern did all of their damage. Eastern Michigan's defense held West Virginia to 4 shots on goal, and truly every time West Virginia had the puck, EMU would knock the player off. The first goal of the game was scored by EMU when Craig Morton shot the puck towards the net and McNamara deflects it in on the Power Play. The second goal for EMU was a very surprising breakaway scored by Koveleski. Eastern was called for a penalty and a beautiful pass by Dresch set him up for an easy breakaway. West Virginia seemed to be giving Eastern these long ice-length passes to gain these easy chances. McNamara scored again by just ripping the puck high at the net. Eastern was up 3-0 after one period and really coasted the rest of the way.

Eastern scored their final goal of the game in the second period of the game, by Mr. Craig Morton, on another breakaway. Eastern then just played a stifling defense for the rest of the game preventing West Virginia from doing much except two goals scored by #11 Brian Cherwinski.

The third period of this game you could clearly tell that EMU was just coasting and saving their energy for the game against Penn State on the next evening. I'd first like to make a couple of comments about West Virginia's hockey team. First of all, they are very youthful and played overall decent, they were just dominated by a much better team on this evening. Second of all, West Virginia's goalie Mr. Jon Natonick should be commended for an outstanding effort, he was standing on his head half of the time stopping everything EMU was doing. True, watching the one video clip of him might not necessarily agree with this fact, but don't believe it. 

Unfortunately, West Virginia just didn't have a chance on this evening. Eastern looked pretty good and gave everyone a lot of confidence going into the game against Penn State on Saturday Afternoon.

Until next time, Go Green.

A-
Reasoning: The offense didn't score a ton of goals, but had several great chances to do so. They didn't take advantage of two breakaways which just drove me absolutely insane in the stands. The offense did take advantage of two on the other end of the spectrum though. It's important that the offense continues to maintain their dominance and pass well to have some success in the Nationals. 

A
Reasoning: The defense was stifling on this evening. They gave away a couple of opportunities but did an outstanding job shutting down West Virginia from getting back in the game except when it didn't matter. Outstanding job. 

 B
Eastern only had two chances on the Power Play and scored once. 50% on the Power Play isn't a bad detail to worry about. Giving up one goal short-handed is not bad, but not great.

A
EMU's goalie Jake Pruss didn't have to do much tonight. He did well enough though to keep things in clear advantage for EMU.

A-
Reasoning: Good game.. but needs to be even better to beat Penn State.

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