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Ann Arbor, MI- The St. Louis Bilikens came to the Ann Arbor Ice Cube with hopes and desires to upset the #3 Eastern Michigan Eagles. They had their chances on this evening, but fell short 4-1 to Eastern Michigan. Eastern Michigan's starting goalie Jake Pruss, stopped 39 out of 40 St. Louis shots and was ultimately the most valuable player of the entire game.

The St. Louis team maintained a large amount of control in this game, playing a very aggressive game, continuously shooting against Jake Pruss with no success. The Eastern Michigan defense also played outstanding tonight by making a lot of nice efforts in front of the net.

The Eastern Michigan offense in the first period was led off by Dane Dresch, a breakaway goal. As it seems, when Dresch gets the chance to nail the puck home on a breakaway, he will nail it. It was a beautiful shot and only 2:45 into the game Eastern had a 1-0 lead. St. Louis came back 5 minutes later with their only goal of the series. The shot was a real flubber that just seemed to float away from everyone and was Pruss's only mistake of the game. It was a real odd looking goal, it just squirmed.

The Eastern Offense never really got into it's full groove on this evening. The St. Louis team played very good defense in front of their own net and did not allow for Eastern Michigan to do a ton of things that they wanted to do. Eastern's passing game was also not as crisp as I'm used to seeing from them. However, they did enough to win the game which is all you can ask for. Eastern got the 8 points they needed from this weekend.

Eastern, also showed one other negative. They committed 8 penalties vs only 3 for St. Louis. One of these eight penalties led to St. Louis scoring their only goal at the Cube. Eastern must show a little more discipline because a team like Penn State will take advantage of these Power Plays, unlike St. Louis. Eastern Michigan looked very good in a game that's excitement was fairly low. St. Louis also looked like a very powerful team, they have some speed and they know how to shoot the puck at will. The one thing was that St. Louis didn't attempt to do redirections and deflections against Pruss.. The shots were all directly attacked upon Pruss, and he was very good to not give up any rebounds which saved him from giving up a couple of goals.

St. Louis should be very proud with their effort this weekend despite their lack of goal-scoring. They played well, and looked like a team that deserves their ranking of #11. I know one thing, I will be giving them more respect then I had of them when they lost to Buffalo. Eastern Michigan can also be very proud about this series because they showed that not only can their offense carry them throughout the season, but they have a great defense and an outstanding backup goalie. Watch out ACHA, Eastern Michigan is on the prowl.

Looking Ahead: 
Eastern Michigan will be taking part in the Michigan-Dearborn "East vs West Classic." They will be facing Towson at 4:00 PM EST on Friday, Rhode Island at 1:00 PM EST on Saturday and Drexel at 1:00 PM EST on Sunday. I will be going to the games on Friday in Dearborn, but I need to find out more information about the tournament and where it is. Once I know, you'll know too. I want to see some EMU fans at the Dearborn arena. =)

Until next time, Go Green.

B+
Reasoning: The offense just wasn't ticking at full scale this evening. They were playing a very good defensive team in St. Louis. The passing wasn't as crisp as it usually is, but the offense made the plays when needed. St. Louis deserves a lot of credit for this grade because they just made it tough on the EMU offense all night, and holding an Eastern team that does like to shoot the puck to 27 shots is quite an accomplishment.

A
Reasoning: I have never seen the Eastern Michigan defense play this well before. It looked outstanding. They were making plays in front of the net. They weren't necessarily stopping the puck from getting to Pruss, but they weren't allowing St. Louis to take advantage of anything against him. It was wonderful.

A-
Reasoning: The power play went 1/3. The one power play goal for Eastern Michigan was with 3 seconds left by Kellermeyer on a real nifty play.(You'll want to look at the replay.) The penalty kill held St. Louis to 1/8 on the Power Play. They did a nice job overall as well, but way too many penalties..

A
Pruss looked outstanding except for that one squibbler that I couldn't believe got by him in the first period.

A-
Reasoning: Credit St. Louis and EMU for showing some outstanding hockey on this evening. Both teams looked like they were perfect for adapting each other and St. Louis has a team that can shoot, and once they learn how to get the puck in the back of the net will be deadly.. I hope we don't have to worry about them in the Nationals. 

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