Cooper Marody scored his first career hat trick in Friday night’s 5-4 victory over hated rival Ohio State Buckeyes.
“It was nice but its good to beat Ohio State,” Marody said after the game about his performance.
On Friday night, hockey would return to Yost Ice Arena as it saw two of college hockey’s fiercest rivals take to the ice for the first game of an important two-game series against Ohio State. Michigan (8-12-2, 1-6-1-1) would come into the game missing two of their leading scorers in Alex Kile and Tony Calderone while Ohio State (12-6-6,3-4-1-1) would come in losing two games to Wisconsin.
During first period, the Wolverines offense seemed to hit the ice with a sense of urgency to get out to a fast start. The Wolverines offense would do that as they would master seven shots in the two and a half minutes into the period. Michigan senior Evan Allen would find the net close to the midway point of the first to give the Wolverines an early 1-0 lead. Freshman Adam Winborg would add his name to the stats sheet with a goal late in the first period to make it 2-0.
Heading into the second period, the Wolverines seemed to be working in all facets in Friday night’s game. One of the Wolverines skilled players sophomore Cooper Marody would find the back of the net early in the second period to score his first goal of the season after missing the first half of the season which caused Yost to erupt in one giant cheer. Ohio State would attempt to mount a comeback while on the power play when Tanner Laczynski would beat Michigan goaltender Hayden Lavigne to make it 3-1. Fortunately for the Wolverines, a Holding penalty by the Buckeye’s Miguel Fidler would give them an important power play where Marody would find the back of the net after find a loose puck and putting Michigan back on top 4-1. Marody wasn’t done adding points to the scoreboard and at 16:04, he would be setup by Sam Piazza and Jake Slaker from the left faceoff circle to get his third goal of the game and first career Hat Trick to make it 5-1.
“Good for Cooper,” Head Coach Red Berenson said after the game. “He’s a sniper and we needed him to step up and provide some offense and on the power play.”
Heading out to start the third period, the Wolverines seemed to have all the momentum and a four goal lead but the Buckeyes had a different idea. Ohio State would find themselves only trailing Michigan by two goals just seventeen seconds into the third period on goals by Nick Schilkey and Miguel Fidler. Ohio State would put the Wolverines on their heels with a barrage of shots similar to what Michigan did in the first period. A tip in by Ohio States Dakota Joshua would bring the Buckeyes within one and you’d think the air was let of the fans at Yost Ice Arena. Michigan would stand tall throughout the final half of the third period to hold onto a 5-4 lead.
“It’s a typical game between these two schools; we learned that if we play the right way for a whole game we can be a decent team. If we don’t play the right way for the whole game we are vulnerable,” Berenson said.
Freshman goaltender Hayden Lavigne would earn his fifth win of the season stopping 25 shots on 29 attempts and Christian Frey would earn the loss after stopping 28 of 33 shots.
These two rivals return to Yost for the rubber match of the weekend series. Puck drop is scheduled for 7:30 EST.
