Peter Barton Stadium was alive this weekend with the 2006 Pioneer Face-Off Classic. The Pioneers hosted Manhattan, Air Force and North Carolina.
On Saturday DU faced the Manhattan Jaspers and they dominated the game. The Jaspers first shot got past freshman goalie Austin Konkel but that was only one of two goals scored by Manhattan in the entire game. Konkel recorded his first win as a Pioneer with four saves. On Saturday Konkel said, “It was awesome to get out there and play and get that first win.”
DU scored a huge 19 points, with 11coming after the first half. Manhattan recorded both of its goals in the first quarter. After the first day of the tourney both North Carolina and Denver had a win, however, only one team could finish out the weekend with two since the two ranked teams were paired for the Sunday match.
“It was good to get a win under our belt. Coming off of last week we wanted to execute our game plan a little more,” Brandon Barcus said after the game Saturday.
Looking toward Sunday he said, “As long as we stay patient we shouldn’t have a problem getting looks.”
Also looking ahead to Sunday’s match, Coach Jamie Munro noted, “We are going to try to play a real up tempo fast paced game. We practiced it today and we will try to keep doing it tomorrow. We did a good job of pushing the ball and then controlling the ball. And if we can do that we have a good chance.”
The No. 13 Tar Heels were tamed by Denver Sunday with a final score of 11-8, and Denver showed a commanding presence in the fourth quarter, scoring over six goals and holding the Tar Heels to just one goal.
Junior Jeb Hollingsworth returned to action after having been roughed up at Virginia last week recorded 17 saves to help DU get the win.
In Saturdays game Denver dominated with 46 groundballs to Manhattan’s 21 and 51 shots to Manhattan’s 16.
DU won 16 of 22 face offs, and scored 19 goals to Manhattan’s two goals. The game on Sunday was not so clear cut. DU was out shot 40-39 by UNC.
Denver had more groundballs with 36 to the Tar Heel’s 29. DU also held the advantage on faceoffs with Geoff Snider taking 12 of 21. And both Denver and North Carolina had six extra man opportunities and both teams were able to convert only one of those chances.
The game went back and forth with Denver up 3-2 after the first quarter. But the Pioneer’s allowed four straight UNC goals in the second quarter and were only able to get one themselves near halftime.
The third quarter saw each team get one goal a piece and then Denver dominated the fourth quarter, scoring four straight goals and only allowing UNC to get one with less than two minutes to go. Denver then sealed the deal with two goals in the final two minutes of the game.
The other game on Sunday saw Manhattan defeat Air Force 5-4. Snider was awarded the MVP for the 2006 Pioneer Face-Off Classic. On Saturday Snider had two goals with an assist, 13 ground balls and won 15 out of 18 faceoffs against the Jaspers. Against the Tar Heels Snider recorded one goal with eight groundballs and 12 out of 21 faceoffs.
Barcus helped DU on the scoreboard with three goals Saturday and two goals with an assist on Sunday.
Munro said Saturday, “I was very pleased with the effort, the guys played hard and did a good job trying to execute what we asked them to do.”
And he must have felt the same way Sunday after DU upset UNC going 2-0 for the weekend and bringing its record for the season to 2-1. So far this season DU is undefeated at home and will play on its home turf again March 4 when it takes on Colgate.
