The Arizona State Sun Devils (2-0) were aided by a whopping 25 penalties as they cruised to a 7-1 win over the Cal State Fullerton Titans (1-2). In an extremely chippy game, the Sun Devils managed to weather the storm of the Titans’ physicality by converting on five of their power plays.
“Well I’m actually disappointed in the power play,” head coach Tait Green said. “I think we got three of them, maybe four, but considering how many power play opportunities we had, we really should have been a lot crisper and a lot cleaner on that. It’s nice to get those goals, but if a team is going to give you that much of a chance, that much work at it, we have to be better there.”
From the start of the game, it never really seemed like Cal State Fullerton ever had five players on the ice, and three Titans were ejected from the game (Chase Marhoff, Trevor Neilson and Trevor Cigich), so the Titans were never in a spot where they could realistically compete with ASU.
But the Sun Devils managed to keep their cool for the most part and didn’t overreact to the barrage of penalties from CSU Fullerton.
“We’ve played them before, we know their reputation, we knew they were coming at us, we knew they were going to play physical,” Green said. “It works in our favor. We’re a small team, but we’re quick and we’re fast. So, (it was) what we expected, and I’m sure it’ll be a little rougher tomorrow night.”
“They couldn’t handle us,” Jake Savona said. “We’re a smaller team, but we can get physical and play a tenacious game. We just go hard in the corners and we’re not going to stop. They’re going to hit us, we’re going to hit them back and put the pucks in the net.”
After a relatively tame start to the game, highlighted by a Savona slap-shot goal at 16:09 in the first period, the game exploded into a firestorm of penalties and jawing at the referees, mostly from Cal State.
With 2:30 remaining in the first, the Titans would commit four penalties in the span of 53 seconds, which led to three quick power play goals from Sean Wilks (1:52), Scott Farr (1:37) and Quinn Thibault (16:44 in the second period) to make the score 4-0 Sun Devils.
“I think our power plays were really working well tonight for it only being the second game of the season, but you can always improve upon it, move the puck around a little bit faster, stop holding onto it and put more pucks in the back of the net,” Wilks said when asked about ASU’s power plays on the night.
Following even more penalties from the Titans, Savona added insult to injury by slipping in a goal with 1:13 on the clock in the second period.
Perhaps the only bright spot of the night for CSU Fullerton was at 16:12 in the third period when freshman James Mahoney scored his first goal in his collegiate career.
The Sun Devils tacked on some insurance goals in the third period from Marcus Velasco (4:07) and Garrett Anderson (3:01).
The Sun Devils next game will be on Saturday at 9 p.m. at Oceanside Ice Arena.
