Someone, somewhere has dubbed the BYU against Utah Valley ice hockey game the “Battle for Valley Supremacy,” but the title for the rivalry game hasn’t crowned either team.
The teams split a two-game season series last year and with a tie in this season’s game, Utah Valley’s overall record against BYU is 1-1-1.
This go-around, neither team could break the 4-4 tie in the extra time.
The Wolverines went ahead with four straight goals in the second and third periods but couldn’t manage to hold the lead
.
“There was a lot of hype leading up to the game and we didn’t really play that well as a team,” said Utah Valley goaltender Colin Stebner. “We were feeding off the energy of the crowd and kinda felt like we were gripping the sticks a little too tight. Give props to BYU, they out worked us in the first period and a half and that was the difference.”
BYU jumped out to a quick three-goal lead in the first period and shut down Utah Valley’s offense in the process.
“We came out pretty slow and they took advantage of it. But we started playing our game and came back,” said defender Jeremy Martin.
They came back in the last four minutes of the second period with three of their four goals.
In the third period, Utah Valley took the lead when they put in a fourth goal, but it was soon taken away when BYU matched it.
The game went into five minutes of overtime to determine the winner but both teams skated off the ice disappointed with the outcome.
“When it came down to it, we were pretty disappointed with the tie and feel like we left a lot on the table,” Martin said.
In the Daily Universe, BYU’s Nate Herrington said, “We stopped doing our systems and then we stopped following our game plan. We are unhappy with the tie and thought that we should have won that one.”
Utah Valley head coach Matt Beaudry was also disappointed with the tie, but shared some optimism, “The good part is that it’s early in the season, and when we have games like this, we learn things about ourselves that we don’t want to have happen later in the season.”
Added team captain Eric Bowman, “I know that we could have played a lot better than we did. We played down to their level. We have a lot of time until the next BYU game, so the tie will sit in our minds for a while. We’re going to come out fired the next game and hopefully we can just bury them.”
The teams meet Feb. 29, but for now, the UVSC and BYU hockey rivalry is at a stalemate.
