BYU NewsNet - Cougars Take First Season Loss in Overtime

After pummeling BYU-Idaho 17-3 on Friday, the Cougars lost their first game of the season to Utah State when the USU captain, Scott John, scored the game-winning goal with .8 seconds left in overtime.

"We felt like we let that one get away from us," said head coach Ed Gantt. "I felt like we took some penalties when we shouldn't have. We let them back in the game and then we just had a breakdown with no time left in overtime."

The breakdown was due to a bad line change by the Cougars that left some of the defensemen on the ice for almost two minutes, an eternity for a hockey player.

"We had a couple of guys get trapped on the ice and they missed the opportunity to get off," Ben Shapiro said. "The puck was in our zone for a while and I was not sure what was going on in front me, then the puck just kind of wound up getting shot across the crease and someone was there to tip it in."

Penalties hounded the Cougars in the third period and left them short handed on the offensive side. A brilliant performance in goal by Shapiro and a stingy BYU defense only gave up one goal in 10 power play opportunities to the Aggies. Although the defense shined, being a man down for a good chunk of time kept the Cougars from posing any offensive threat.

"When we stayed out of the box we spent the whole night in their zone," Gantt said. "We out shot them. And when it was even strength, we took it to them and we did it well."

BYU went down 1-0 early in the first period, but regrouped and began to dominate through the first and second periods. Ben Shugart scored on a power play goal to tie the game 1-1, and then Brandon Holmes scored his team leading 8th goal of the season to take a 2-1 lead going into the third. Ken Aresenault, the leading goal scorer for the Aggies, tied the game 2-2 half way through the third period with his second goal of the night that sent the game into overtime.

In overtime the Cougars had some good scoring opportunities, but were unable to capitalize on the offensive side. BYU will take its 3-1-0-1 record on the road this weekend when they face Northern Colorado and Metro State.