Heading into the third period Friday night, the Hornets held a one goal lead on the UC Davis Aggies but could not get the win. The Aggies scored three goals in the last period to beat the Hornets by a score of 5-4.

“This game was lost just purely on us not taking advantage of our lead,” said Hornet goaltender, sophomore Christian Walsh. “We sat back on the goal we had?we just got a little lazy.”

Hornets Head Coach Tom Bowen said that the team missed valuable opportunities to put the game away.

“When you have three breakaways and you can’t score and so many other opportunities but just couldn’t finish them, you allow a team to stay in the game. That’s what we did and it cost us the game,” said Bowen.

The Aggies scored three power play goals against the Hornets in the game. The Hornets committed eight penalties throughout the game, three of which came in the third period.

“We went into the box and it cost us goals. We know now that we need to work on our penalty killing a whole lot more,” said Bowen.

The Hornets were the first team to get on the board when sophomore right winger Justin Ellison scored less than four minutes into the game. He was assisted by junior center Chase Turner.

Aggie sophomore defenseman Charlie Cohn scored the next two goals a little more than two minutes apart early in the second period to take the lead. Senior defenseman Steven Gribble assisted him on the first and senior forward Ben Dines assisted him on the second.

Hornets junior defenseman Brian Hubbert scored an unassisted goal on a slap shot from the point to tie the game up. The Hornets took the lead when senior defenseman Nick Navas scored on a wrist shot with a minute and a half remaining in the second period. The goal was assisted by senior center Kevin Bean and sophomore right winger Kyle Klaski.

After the intermission, the Aggies junior defenseman Eric Wulfmeyer scored early in the third period to make the score 3-3. Aggies freshman forward Keisuke Teeple scored five minutes later, assisted by Wulfmeyer, to take the lead at 4-3.

The Hornets answered back when Raymond Gsell shot the puck on target and junior center Ryan Siler scored on the rebound with nine minutes left in the game.

The excitement of the goal was forgotten when Teeple scored a power play goal to give the Aggies the lead and eventually the game.

“Truthfully we out played them. They scored some fluke goals and we couldn’t put the puck in the net. Story of our season really,” said sophomore left winger Sam Danovich.

Bowen said that the Hornets need to play better as a team and not commit certain penalties like they did Friday night. He said he was not sure if he would make any changes going into the game against the Aggies Saturday night.

The Hornets will host the Aggies again at 6:45 p.m. tonight at the Skatetown Ice Arena in Roseville.

Andrew Eggers can be reached at [email protected]