Icecats gunning for revenge

Tanith L. Balaban Arizona Daily Wildcat Icecat sophomore goaltender Mike Tesi (32) scoots out the puck during Arizona's matchup with Southern Cal earlier this season. Tesi has the challenge of holding off the ASU after the Ice Devils scored nine goals on 22 shots against freshman Jordan Bolton last Friday.

The Arizona Icecats club hockey team can certainly relate to that after losing 9-2 to Arizona State in Phoenix last Friday.

Tonight and tomorrow at 7:30 the Icecats are out for a little payback at the Tucson Convention Center.

"It's definitely two must-win games," Icecat junior co-captain Bob Majka said. "We need these games bad if we want to get into nationals."

Arizona (7-4) dropped into a tie for eighth in the latest American Collegiate Hockey Association poll, while ASU jumped to seventh, the first time in history the Ice Devils have been ranked higher than the Icecats.

Icecat head coach Leo Golembiewski said that "they didn't outplay us, we were just inconsistent."

The Icecats gave up nine goals on 22 shots last weekend, a stat that stood out in the defeat.

"There's definitely a lot of pressure riding on this weekend," Icecat sophomore goalie Mike Tesi said.He regained the starting job from freshman Jordan Bolton after Bolton got shelled.

Tesi said that he has felt the pressure all season, first to attain the starting job and now to keep it. He said that every shot against him counts toward that pressure.

"I think you have to look at it that way," Tesi said. "If not, you're going to slip up."

The Icecats were also frustrated offensively last week, scoring only two goals on 44 shots.

"I think it was us more than them," freshman left-wing Paul Dorn said. "I don't want to take anything away from them. They have a good goalie. We just didn't get many good shots."

Majka had similar feelings.

"We had a lot of opportunities to put a lot of shots in the goal," he said. "We just didn't get our passes down into the zone."

Golembiewski has made changes, shaking up the starting lines that have been in place since October.

"People aren't working as hard now as they were when the season started," Golembiewski said.

Senior co-captain Ben Ruston will continue to play center and anchor the first line, with Dorn jumping up from the second line and freshman Charles McCarty coming up from the third line to play right-wing.

The second line will now consist of freshmen Marc Harris at center, Mike Graves at right-wing and Ed Carfora at left-wing. The third line, which Golembiewski said has been the most productive of late, will now have freshman Jim Wilkey and sophomore Tommy Thompson joining sophomore center Brian Meehan.

The games with the Ice Devils are the last for the Icecats this semester, and the importance of that has not been lost on any member of the team.

"They always play us tough," Majka said. "But we're definitely a better team, and hopefully we will- no, wait, check that, we will show that this weekend."