Icecats rebound with back-to-back blowouts

Tanith L. Balaban Arizona Daily Wildcat Paul Dorn (10) pushes off a USC player Friday night at the Tucson Convention Center. Dorn had a hat trick in the Icecats' 9-4 win over Southern Cal.

Take, for instance, shots on goal. When a team is outshot 120-34, it's not a good thing.

Just ask the Southern Cal club hockey team.

The Trojans (9-4) got smashed 13-2 and 9-4 this weekend at the Tucson Convention Center at the hands of the fifth-ranked Arizona Icecats (6-2).

The Icecats had come into the series after being swept by fourth-ranked defending champion Ohio last week at home.

"This wasn't a test," Icecat senior center and co-captain Ben Ruston said. "We had our fun this weekend."

Ruston scored three goals in Saturday night's 11-point blowout.

The Icecats jumped out to an early lead when Ruston caught the puck in mid-air with his glove, dropped it back on the ice and smacked it past Trojan goalie Wylie Diercks.

Arizona freshman Paul Dorn then slammed home a power-play goal less than two minutes later, followed by freshman Mike Graves' wrap-around with 4:29 remaining, and then back-to-back goals by freshman Ed Carfora.

Arizona had a 5-0 lead at the end of the first period, and things would only get worse for Southern Cal.

Carfora earned a hat-trick with his third goal 6:47 into the second period.

"It took a lot of pressure off of me," he said. "I hadn't been scoring a lot of goals of late, just assists."

Goals by sophomore Tommy Thompson, junior Brian Meehan and freshman Marc Harris gave the Icecats a 9-0 lead at the end of the second.

Southern Cal got a goal when a pass bounced off Icecat sophomore defenseman Joe McCaffrey's skate and trickled past sophomore goalie Mike Tesi.

9-1 would be the closest the Trojans would get.

Ruston scored twice, followed by goals by Thompson and freshman Jim Wilkey, rounding out the Icecat scoring.

Southern Cal had one more goal, a dribbler that got past Tesi much like its first goal to make the final score 13-2.

Friday's game was equally lopsided. The Trojans scored an early goal to take the lead, only to have the Icecats rebound and score four unanswered goals by the end of the first period.

Dorn had three goals and Harris had four in the 9-4 win.

"It felt nice to actually get some wins," Harris said. "We had a good time tonight."

Icecat head coach Leo Golembiewski was pleased with what he saw.

"We wanted three solid periods going into this series," he said. "What we really wanted was consistency on offense. I was really happy with the way we circulated down in the offensive zone."

Carfora credits his line-mates with his big scoring weekend.

"Playing with Benny and Marc makes it easier," he said. "They're the two greatest players I've ever played with."

Golembiewski said that this weekend's wins were a good way to rebound from the losses to Ohio.

"What we really wanted from this series was to help us build up for our upcoming series with Minot State," he said.

The 11th-ranked Beavers will be in town on Friday and Saturday night at 7:30 at the TCC.