VALLEY RANCH, Texas – Finishing up the Texas Collegiate Hockey Conference schedule going 4-0 this past week, the East Texas Baptist University hockey team captured the North Division Regular season championship with a sweep of the University of North Texas Eagles. ETBU outscored UNT, 41-7, in the two games winning, 23-4, and 17-3. ETBU is now 21-1-1 overall and are 18-1 in the TCHC.
Game one saw 23 goals from ETBU while they would conceded four goals from UNT. Two players would have four goals as
Ryan Gruszka (five assists) and
Riley Knott would lead the way. Both
Filip Soderstrom (six assists) and Tyler McElroy finished with a hat trick while
Matt Duncan and Davis VanGemerden would each record two goals. Nick Buzzuto (14 saves) and
Hunter McAdams (five saves) paired up for 19 saves.
In Game two, ETBU increased a 3-1 lead to a 17-3 victory. Gruskza had four goals and Knott posted three goals as they finished with their second straight game with a hat trick. VanGemerden (four assists),
Albert Wiggins, and
Timothy Zittel would each score two goals. McAdams would stop all but three of the 15 shots faced.
Game 1: ETBU 23, UNT 4
The Tigers would start the game with five goals as Soderstrom (16:48, 12:20),
Devon Baird (14:06), Knott (13:17), and
Brendan Laing (12:25) put the Tigers up, 5-0. After the Eagles got on the board (12:09), Gruszka (6:06) and VanGemerden (5:41) answered with two goals. The pattern repeated itself at the end of the first period with UNT getting a second goal (2:52) only for ETBU to have two goals from Duncan (2:11) and Gruszka (1:53) to lead 9-2 after one period.
UNT would score first in the second period (14:05), but watched as ETBU had four straight goals starting with a hat trick goal from Gruszka (13:14) followed by Wiggins (9:52), Soderstrom (7:00), and VanGemerden (3:52). The score would be as close as 13-4 with 3:37 in the second period after another Eagles goal. From that point on, ETBU finished with 10 straight goals beginning with Gruszka (3:13) and Knott (0:39) to end the period up 15-4.
Eight goals came for ETBU in the third period with Knott (10:16, 4:51) scoring his third and fourth goals respectively while Tyler McElroy (8:04, 1:48, 1:31) recorded his hat trick all in the period. Duncan (11:16),
Hunter Dorram (8:26) and Zittel (4:24) would add to the team's score in the period, which gave ETBU their 20th win on the season.
Game 2: ETBU 17, UNT 3
The Tigers started the game with two goals by Gruszka (13:53) and Zittel (11:42). A second goal from Gruszka with 13:57 left in the second period made it 3-0 before the Eagles got on the board with 6:38 to go. Gruszka (5:56, 2:34) then netted two of ETBU's next three goals with VanGemerden (4:58) tallying the other. After UNT made it 6-2 (2:06), Wiggins netted a goal for a five-score lead, 7-2 (0:26), after two periods.
ETBU would then go on an onslaught as they poured 10 goals in the third period while conceding one goal.
Tyler Wathen (15:23) started the scoring while Knott (10:34) and VanGemerden (10:23) scored within 11 seconds of each other. UNT had their lone goal at 7:26 before ETBU racked up seven straight goals from Dylan Hendrick (7:11),
Jimmy Beirne (6:16), Knott (5:40, 3:11), Zittel (5:11), Baird (2:20), and Wiggins (1:02).
ETBU is off this week, but will head out to Fayetteville, Ark., for their final two games of the season against the University of Arkansas on January 31 and February 1.
