USU rides the Missile past Northern Colorado, 4-1

Coach Eccles Post UNC

Tyler Mistelbacher continued his offensively potent season Saturday night against the University of Northern Colorado (UNC), scoring twice and leading USU hockey to a 4-1 win.

"The Missile" is separating himself from the field in Division 2 of the American Collegiate Hockey Association (ACHA) in terms of scoring. With a total of 38 goals, Mistelbacher ranks third in scoring on the season in all of D2 ACHA hockey behind only Samuel Wheeler of Northwestern (46) and UNLV's Michael Zenzola (39). Mistelbacher is tied with Kentucky's Tony Valerino (38), and Valerino has played two fewer games than Mistelbacher has this season.

187 teams play nationwide in D2 ACHA hockey, and Tyler Mistelbacher is behind only six players in the entire league in goals per game at 1.44.

"He's just on a tear right now," head coach Jon Eccles said of Mistelbacher, "but he's on a line where we've got some good guys feeding him the puck and setting him up. But he's a natural goal-scorer."

Mistelbacher scored the first goal of the game in the first period and another in the second. UNC, trailing by three after two, managed to get one by USU goaltender Dan Cornelius in the third and held USU scoreless until 0:15 mark. As a matter of fact, Eccles identified Cornelius as the standout player of the game for his excellent performance in the nets. Eccles said the only goal that Cornelius allowed was virtually impossible to defend.

"He played well," Eccles said. "The goal they scored on him was a redirect. It got deflected. It might have even gone off of one of our guys, but Dan played a great game."

The save statistics from this game tell much about the style of the game in addition to how dominant Cornelius was on Saturday. Cornelius had 22 saves on 23 shots made against his goal. By contrast, UNC's goaltender, Phil Tereyla, made 41 saves on 44 shots. Utah State was able to not only maintain possession of the puck and move it around in the offensive zone much more easily than their opponent, but also denied UNC any room offensively.

"We're playing well with team defense," Eccles said. "Everyone's getting back and helping. Our defensemen are chipping the puck out. We're getting good breakouts, and we're also getting enough people back to help. We're doing well in the neutral zone, tying it up and creating turnovers."

In a desperate attempt to generate some offense and hopefully deadlock the game at three apiece, UNC pulled their goalie at the end of the third period, artificially going on the power play. The plan backfired. USU was able to swipe the puck from UNC and made a beeline straight for the open net at the other end of the ice. Jeremy Martin controlled the puck and dished it to Billy Gouthro. Gouthro, in turn, got it to David Wyman, and he sunk the puck into the open net with only 15 seconds remaining in the game, sealing the win for the Aggies.

Also scoring in this game for USU besides Mistelbacher and Wyman was Jeremy Moore. Moore's first period goal put the Aggies ahead by two.

Utah State will next head to Colorado to take on Denver University, a top-10 team in the region, and Metro State. USU's next home game will be Friday, Feb. 19 when Denver University visits the Eccles Ice Center in the final game of the regular season for USU. The puck drops at 7:05 p.m.

USU v CV Trappers - Video News Story

State of the Blog

As you may have noticed, postings on this blog have become more and more sparse with the passage of time.

This posting is not to apologize for the lack of current information - this posting is to explain why.

I am a full-time student at USU. I pay to become educated, and so I have to take advantage of that educational opportunity, which means that if I have a choice between updating this blog and doing my homework, I'll do my homework. However, much of my homework and work in general is to cover current events, which means that whenever there is no conflict of interest, I'll be posting my work to this blog. Also, I'll try as much as possible to keep our radio segments up on this blog weekly. This is an effort that takes a lot of time, for which I neither pay nor am I paid. I certainly hope that you find this important. Please feel free to email me and tell me what you think of this blog or how it could be improved.

la.hem@aggiemail.usu.edu

That's pretty much the long and the short of it. Go Aggies

Aggie Women beat Lady Vandals with a Willams Buzzer-Beater

Tahara Williams postgame

The Aggie women used a buzzer-beater by Tahara Williams to snap their 4-game losing streak and pick up one more win against Idaho.

Utah State led by nine with just over 4 minutes left, but Idaho went on a 7-0 run to bring it within two. The Aggies could not convert, and in the final minute, Idaho had a chance to tie. Tie they did.

Enter Williams.

Williams came down the court with just under nine seconds remaining. She saw an opportunity, hit the crossover à lá Deron Williams, and sank the 15-footer for the win as time expired.

This is the fourth athletic victory USU has had against Idaho this year (Football, Men's BBall, Women's BBall, Women's Soccer). As an athletic institution, USU is 4-2 against Idaho this year, USU's only losses coming in volleyball.

Head Coach Reagan Pebley said the win could be a turning point for the Aggie season.

"I don't care where you win," Pebley said, "When you get a win on the road, it can do huge things for your season and for your confidence."

Go here for more details.

USU - Hawai'i - Men's Basketball - Game 17

Postgame Wrap-Up

Stew Postgame

Tai Postgame

Newbold Postgame

Redemption

That word of comfort, joy, reconciliation and conclusion appeared to be the theme for the beleaguered Aggie Ball club heading into Monday's matchup between Hawai'i and Utah State. The Aggies came into the game having dropped the last two games, the team's WAC opening games, on the road. The first loss was a close one to NMSU, but the second was not nearly as close. Louisiana Tech put on the chokehold and didn't let up the entire evening, pummeling USU into a 23-point hole from which the visitors never escaped.

That having been said, however, USU has overall fared well to this point in the season. USU finished the preseason dropping only four games, and closely contested ones at that. With 15 regular-season games remaining, the future remains in the hands of our boys in blue and white, and that future looks bright after the beatdown that USU put down on the Hawai'i Rainbow Warriors in the Spectrum

Redemption.

Utah State had this season's most spectacular half of basketball they've played so far this season. USU shot 73.1 percent from the field over the half. Yes, 73.1 percent. The Aggies hit 19 of their 26 shots and completely put the beatdown on the visiting team. Seven of those makes were from 3-point land, the most spectacular of which was Jared Quayle's NBA distance buzzer-beater over the 6'10" Xi Jiang. Oh yeah, USU only took 8 shots from downtown as well. What was different in this game from the last ones?

First, the opponent. Hawai'i is good, but they aren't spectacular. They've won their fair share of games, but all have come against no-name teams. Hawai'i lost to BYU by a bunch, UNLV by a bunch, Idaho by seven, St. Mary's by nine, among others. Hawai'i is a mediocre team with a mediocre coach playing, well, mediocre...

Second, swagger. The Ags had it all night long. A great man once said, "A man should walk through life like a pilot through a cockpit: cool, calm and checkin' out the sexy stews!" If Tai Wesley lost his confidence at all on this most recent road trip, he certainly got it back. He was cracking jokes with the press and checking out a pair of good-lookin' cheerleaders in the hall during media interview times. Yeah, that's right Tai. I saw that. For the good of the team, I certainly hope Tai remains that way.

And finally, offensive execution was off the charts in this game. Truly rare is a 90-point performance from a college team in 40 minutes, but this game had every possibility to break 100. Combine Newbold's 5-5 night from the 3-point line with Brian Green's 3-3 night, and there's 24 points. BAM!

Sure Stew could have left in starters to run up the score, but Stew is compassionate - listen to his postgame interview and reasoning behind not trying to run up the score. Still, I only wish that USU had been able to grab that last rebound and score those last two points to hit the century mark. That would have been sweet.

So, is this USU team fixed? No. They dominate at home, but need to bottle the swagger and take it with them on the road. USU ran the floor really very well in this game, and that's the main reason why the Ags ran up such a high score. They need to do that as well on the road. Hawai'i had loads of turnovers in a very sloppy performance. Nevada won't play so poorly. And of course, USU needs to hit shots when the shot is there. The Aggies need to execute offensively and not be discouraged by the fact that the HURD is watching the game on the tube instead of in the seats.

In a final note, scientists discovered that rather than a pot of gold lying at the end of the rainbow, there's only a crappy basketball team. Tragic...

All-in-all, nice win Aggies. Kill 'em on Wednesday in Reno.

We're back from the break!

There really isn't much to say except that this is the beginning of a New School Year! We're back on Fusion every week on Friday at 8 a.m. Join Tyler, Jared, and me, Landon, to get the update on what's happening in the world of Aggie Sports.

Go Aggies!