Icecats sweep ASU in finale

Arizona Daily Wildcat Sophomore Andy Nick (15) pulled off a hat trick against Arizona State on Friday night. In the last weekend of home games for the Icecats, they swept the Ice Devils.

The Icecats (24-2-1) defeated the Ice Devils (19-9) 6-3 on Friday night and 6-2 on Saturday in front of a weekend total of 12,301 fans at the Tucson Convention Center.

"We feel pretty good about a big win like this to give us momentum going into the national tournament," Battaglia said. "These (UA) guys gave it their all, it's a pride game and they (ASU) are trying to do the same thing we are. We may even meet them in the national tournament."

"These were good, physical games," Icecat head coach Leo Golembiewski said.

The final regular season game started off slowly for Arizona as penalties dominated the first 15 minutes of play.

Senior co-captain Peter Scott scored the first Icecat goal at 16:16 off of passes from junior Ben Ruston and sophomore Paul Juran.

ASU's Patrick Cavaleri retaliated for the Ice Devils at 19:45, tying the game at 1-1 to end the first period.

"We came out flat tonight and that was certainly the consensus of the whole squad during the intermission," Golembiewski said.

The Icecats responded in the second period, scoring two more goals to expand their lead.

Sophomore Andy Knick, who completed a hat trick in Friday night's victory, scored on a power play at 3:50 from Scott and freshman Josh Flett.

Senior co-captain Sam Battaglia gave the Icecats a 3-1 advantage, connecting at 15:47 off of a pass from senior Joel Nusbaum.

Battaglia, Scott, Nusbaum and Brian Consolino skated at the TCC for the last time in their careers. They were each honored before the game.

"It was a pretty emotional night," Golembiewski said. "You're talking about spending the last four years with these kids. Consolino never really got on track and Battaglia had a broken skate and didn't even play the first period. He came right back and played strong the last two periods."

Consolino said that since he's been here, the Icecats have never lost to ASU at home.

"It feels great," he said. "Keeping the home streak alive was really important. The seniors didn't want to lose in their own place, so it's really nice."

When Scott scored his second goal at 2:25 to start the third period, things got ugly.

ASU players began swinging in frustration. Nusbaum and junior Chad Dyjak were both given 10-minute game misconduct calls and finished the game in the locker room. Thirty seconds later after that dispute was settled, Scott was tossed out of the game as well for misconduct. Several Ice Devils were penalized.

During the flying fists and penalties, ASU scored on a break-away at 14:32.

With three Ice Devils watching from the penalty box, Ruston scored at17:10 off of passes from freshmen Joe McCaffery and Kevin Baskel. Ace Pascual put in the final goal at 19:46 to conclude the scoring.

Freshman goaltender Beau LeMire had 27 saves. The Icecats had 44 shots on Ice Devil goaltender Greg Powers.

The Icecats are the No. 2 seed in the American Collegiate Hockey Association. They head to the national tournament at Eastern Michigan University on March 4-8.

"We're very proud of this team," Golembiewski said. "You have to look at the fact that you have 17 freshmen and sophomores. They showed a lot of poise at times and a lot of experience at times. I'm really proud of them."