Hoosiers take 2 games from Wolverines

For the past two weekends the IU Hockey team has struggled to finish off teams, blowing leads in two contests. This weekend proved to be a different story for the Hoosiers. The resurgent bunch never looked back against Michigan, sweeping the Wolverines 5-1 and 4-1 in Bloomington.\nIU junior forward Reed Schafer started the charge for the Hoosiers, scoring the first goal of Friday's game and adding another less than a minute later to give the Hoosiers an early 2-0 lead. After Michigan got on the board with a late first-period goal, freshman Daniel Keeney notched his second goal of the season to give the Hoosiers a two-goal advantage going into the second intermission. IU held on for the victory as Schafer tallied his third goal of the game, giving him his first hat-trick and 14th goal on the season.\nThe Hoosiers dominated throughout the game and put constant pressure on their opponents, firing 40 shots on goal. Junior goalie Brien McCormick picked up his seventh win of the season with a 28-save performance.\n"We increased our commitment to defense and moving the puck out of our zone," Schafer said. "Defensemen played well in making smart decisions at all ends of the ice, and our forwards were more focused on coming back into our defensive zone and completing their defensive duties before moving the puck up the ice."\nIn game two of the weekend set, the Hoosiers maintained their pace. IU took advantage of their scoring opportunities and limited the Wolverines to one goal. Four different Hoosiers scored Saturday as Schafer racked up his fourth goal of the weekend. Senior forward Pete Johnson added his 14th goal of the season while senior Chad Fiala also scored. Junior goaltender Jimmy Hugill stopped 31 shots on net for his seventh win of the season. Since the start of the second semester, the Hoosiers have given up an average of 3.3 goals per game, in large part because of team play.\n"The fact that we kept (Michigan) to only one goal a game shows a complete team effort," senior defenseman Bill Ravensberg said. "I am proud of the way the guys played this weekend and hopefully we can keep it up for the rest of the year."\nIU sophomore forward Dan Karlander agreed with Ravensberg's assessment.\n"It was a great team effort to limit them to just two goals in 120 minutes of play," he said. "We did a great job of forcing them to shoot low percentage shots."\nThe Hoosiers were also happy about their success in power play situations. During the weekend, IU went 5-for-10 on power plays while Michigan went scoreless. \n"This is a huge advantage on special teams," IU coach Rich Holdeman said. "Our penalty killers did an outstanding job and our power play was very \nefficient."\nThe Hoosiers improved their record to 14-9-3 on the season and 7-4-3 in league play. With the two wins, the Hoosiers locked up third place in the Great Midwestern Hockey League and will play Miami of Ohio in the quarterfinals of the conference tournament in Grand Rapids on Feb. 24. Holdeman said he hoped these victories could give his team some confidence going into the \ntournament.\n"The team put together two very solid performances and we were able to close out the games -- something we have struggled to do lately," he said. "Getting the two wins and locking up third place is a huge accomplishment and hopefully gives us some momentum come tournament time"