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NC State hockey finishes with record- setting season
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PAGE 12 • THURSDAY, APRIL 11, 2019
NC State hockey finishes with record-setting season
Ryan Henkel
Correspondent
What started as one goal, an ACCHL championship, quickly turned into another goal, and then another and another. This was the path that the NC State men’s club hockey team found itself on during its 201819 season.
The list of accolades is impressive for the Pack: an undefeated regular season, going 220-0 during that stretch with a plus-133 goal differential, an ACCHL regular season and tournament championship and a win over a Virginia team that beat them two years prior in the championship game. The Pack also had wins over Rider and Liberty, the hosting team in the ACHA D2 regionals, and qualified for the ACHA D2 Nationals, where the Pack won a game, finishing third in its pool.
“The ACC was our original goal,” said senior team captain Sam Banasiewicz. “Just kind of being on the borrowed time for regionals, our team hadn’t done that since I think it was 2004, even making it to regionals, so nobody really expected us to go there, and certainly we didn’t. Even to come out and win that first game, we were the first team from the ACCHL to win a regional game, let alone a second game, and qualify for nationals. I think it just goes to show how great this team was this year and what we were able to accomplish.”
Alongside the team’s achievements, the Wolfpack also had a few players receive individual honors. Banasiewicz was named ACCHL MVP and named to the ACHA D2 Southeast All-Region second team. Freshman Riley Johnson was named ACCHL Rookie of the Year, and graduate Eric Mura was named ACCHL Tournament MVP.
Banasiewicz and Johnson as well as juniors Laythe Jadallah and Ian O’Rourke were also named to the ACCHL All-Star team for the ACHA D2 All-Star competition on April 12-14.
The Wolfpack didn’t do it alone. The team had the support of not only NC State fans, but also fans of North Carolina hockey. The Wolfpack started a GoFundMe to help raise money for its travel to nationals with an initial goal of $10,000, which was matched by an anonymous donor. This goal was smashed within seven hours of uploading the fundraiser. The community poured in support for the team, raising over $33,000 in a little over a month.
“People talk about how much money was raised on GoFundMe, but I think the more important part was how many people pitched in.” said senior goaltender Joey Hall. “The final amount was over $30,000, but the fact that it came from like 300 people was even more impressive. I coach a 12-U local youth team, and I saw parents of kids I coached donating to it. It really touches you. It’s more than NC State’s team, it’s North Carolina’s, it’s Raleigh’s team.”
Officially, NC State’s winning streak for the 2018-2019 season was 27 games long, losing its only two games in ACHA Nationals pools. The first loss came against top-seeded Massachusetts, and the only other loss they saw came in its final match of pools against Trine University.
The Pack still managed to pull off a win against second-seeded Northern Colorado between those two losses to really make a stand. With a win at that level, NC State solidified itself as a team capable of competing on the national stage.
“Our goal was just making a statement,” Banasiewicz said. “After losing the first match to UMass, we kind of realized that our chances probably weren’t the best to advance to the semifinals, but we still wanted to come out. It wasn’t ‘Oh hey, let’s go have fun in Dallas for a week,’ it was more, ‘We still need to come out and play our best,’ and we were the first team from our league and out of franchise history to even get a win at nationals.”
A large calling card and phrase the Wolfpack had been running with was “silence the doubters,” an homage to the many that consider North Carolina a nontraditional and lackluster hockey team. However, NC State has shown everyone that it’s here to compete.
“We’re growing the game,” said senior alternate captain Ryan Kinney. “It’s been growing in the south for a while now, but just having a club hockey team from North Carolina State University has been monumental. Even the [Carolina] Hurricanes recognized what we were doing, with letting us play at PNC Arena and supporting us by giving us a portion of the sales for lower bowl tickets to help us get to Nationals. Even they recognized what a difference we were making for hockey in the south.”
An emotional journey for sure, the team spoke about one another as if they had known each other all their lives. This season formed a bond that the team will always share, but for some of the older guys, including Banasiewicz and Hall, this was still their final season.
“[My final game] was always in the back of my mind,” Banasiewicz said. “We were always trying to do our best, but in the back of our minds we knew, or at least I knew, it was going to be my last game. I’ve been here for five years, and it’s been a lot of fun. This was the best possible year to go out on, and this is the best this team has done in its history, so to be able to call it my last was an honor.”
Looking on to next season, the Pack is set to come back with the same expectations and spirit it showed this year. With returning faces and some new ones, it is up to returning players to step into the leadership roles that will be vacant.
“I’m looking forward to it,” Kinney said. “We still have a good group of guys left. We are losing six seniors, so that’s not fun, but all we can do is hope we get some people willing to fill in the roles when they come in as freshmen or transfers, and that the guys returning from this year are willing to set an example for the new guys and show them what it takes to get to Nationals again.”
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PAGE 13 • THURSDAY, APRIL 11, 2019
Wolfpack prepares for weekend trip against Fighting Irish
Kailee Jurnak
Staff Writer
NC State’s softball team will head to Indiana this weekend for a three-day competition against Notre Dame.
The Wolfpack (22-18, 3-9 ACC) will be entering this weekend with a clean slate from its last conference weekend against Syracuse, where the Pack was dealt two losses and one win.
Last season against the Fighting Irish (24-13, 7-5 ACC), the Wolfpack was destroyed in its first game 15-0 which was called in the fifth inning. Batters Katie Marino, Ali Wester and Abby Sweet accumulated six of the 15 runs.
The second game was a 4-1 win for the Pack. Junior outfielder Angie Rizzi is the only returning player for the Pack who scored one of the four runs. The third game was cancelled and never rescheduled.
This season the Wolfpack has struggled against conference teams, having been swept by both Virginia Tech and Florida State. The Pack has only won one ACC series against Boston College.
The Fighting Irish have had a slightly better conference season so far, winning all three games against Boston College during their ninth annual Strikeout Cancer weekend, taking the first game 11-0. However, the Fighting Irish faced a similar fate as the Pack against Syracuse and Florida State, losing two of the three games.
Even though the Wolfpack has managed to score up to 16 runs in a game this season during its third game against Boston College, the Pack usually scores about four runs compared to the Fighting Irish’s average of 5.4 runs a game.
The Pack’s freshman pitcher Sydney Nester has a 2.50 ERA, impressive for her first year compared to the Fighting Irish’s freshman pitcher Payton Tidd who has her team’s best ERA of 2.62.
The first game will start this Friday in South Bend, Indiana at 6 p.m.
PARKER MCLAWHORN/TECHNICIAN Junior centerfielder Angie Rizzi attempts to bunt the ball on Sunday, April 7, 2019 at Dail Softball Stadium. Rizzi had two hits as NC State lost to Syracuse 5-3.
Hurricanes ready to face ‘huge task’ in Capitals
Andrew Schnittker
Sports Editor
The Carolina Hurricanes face a tall order in their first playoff series since the 2009 Eastern Conference finals. As the Eastern Conference’s first wild card, Carolina will open its first-round series Thursday in Washington against the Metropolitan Division champion Washington Capitals.
The Capitals, of course, come into the series battle tested. Washington won the Stanley Cup last year and returned a good chunk of its championship roster.
“They’re the best team for a reason,” said Canes head coach Rod Brind’Amour. “They get you any which way. So for me, the impressive thing about their team is that they’ve learned how to win. They’re comfortable being uncomfortable. They’re comfortable in the games that are 1-1, 1-0. It doesn’t matter how many chances they’re getting. They’re comfortable in playing their game because they know it wins.”
For the Canes, this will be new ground for a lot of this year’s roster. The team’s active roster for game one features 12 players who have never played in a Stanley Cup playoff game.
That doesn’t mean Carolina is bereft of playing experience. Team captain Justin Williams has won three Stanley Cups, including one with Carolina in 2006. Forward Jordan Staal won a cup in 2009 with the Pittsburgh Penguins, and forward Teuvo Teravainen and defenseman Trevor van Riemsdyk have won with the Chicago Blackhawks.
That prior experience will be key for Carolina’s younger players to lean on as they go into their first playoff games.
“I think it’s all important,” Brind’Amour said. “We have the older guy that’s been here, done it to show the younger guys, but then we have young guys who have tasted it too, so I think that helps, for sure, to have all different kinds of experiences in playing at this time of year. It’s a whole other kind of level of play. The more guys that have experienced it, it’s certainly helpful.”
And while the team knows making the playoffs for the first time in a decade is a major accomplishment, it’s far from satisfied.
Carolina’s goal all along was to get into the playoffs and make some noise. Step one is taken care of.
“We’re certainly expecting more,” Brind’Amour said. “This isn’t what we signed up for. We all understand it’s a huge task, but we’re not going into this series not expecting to win, that’s for sure.” Step two is now underway, and that starts with the Capitals. Carolina is familiar with Washington as a divisional opponent, with the teams squaring off four times in the regular season.
While Carolina finished the season series 0-3-1 against Washington, all four games were at least close entering the third period, and two were decided by one goal. The Canes know it’s a matter of finding that extra edge against a top opponent.
“They’re a veteran team,” said Williams, who played in Washington for two years. “The games that we lost this year were tight checking games that they found a way to win, which is what good teams do. We can learn from that. We can look at that and say we were right there, which we were, and playoff time’s a whole new animal. Their stats are down to zero, our stats are down to zero and away we go.”
In order to have a shot in this series, Carolina will need to play a tight game against a top-tier offensive team. Washington finished the regular season averaging 3.34 goals per game, good for fifth in the league and third in the Eastern Conference.
As always, Washington’s offense starts with forward Alex Ovechkin, perhaps the best pure goal scorer of this generation. Ovechkin tickled the twine 51 times this season en route to his ninth career Rocket Richard Trophy as the league’s leading goal scorer.
Ovechkin also demonstrated his play-
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HURRICANES
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off prowess during Washington’s cup run last season, posting 15 goals and 27 points in 24 games while on his way to winning the Conn Smythe Trophy as the Stanley Cup Playoffs MVP.
Shutting Ovechkin down is probably too much to ask, but Carolina needs to find a way to contain him. A key player in that role will be Staal, a two-way forward often tasked with shutting down the opposition’s top players.
Staal will be able to draw on his experiences during Pittsburgh’s run in 2009, when he faced down Ovechkin in the Capitals in a second-round series.
“He was the same old Alex Ovechkin,” Staal said. “Obviously a dangerous player, a fast player, a powerful player and a guy that can score from a lot of different areas of the ice that most players can’t do. A player that you’ve got to be on top as you can. The little time and space he does have, he’s going to make the best of it, so you’ve got to take away as much as you can.”
Of course, the Caps’ threats don’t stop with Ovechkin. With 74 and 72 points, respectively, during the regular season, Nicklas Backstrom and Evgeny Kuznetsov form one of the best 1-2 punches at center in the league. The likes of forwards TJ Oshie, Tom Wilson and Jakub Vrana bring secondary scoring, and John Carlson is an offensive threat from the blue line.
The Canes will need their deep, talented defense corps to be in top form, from the goal-scoring threats in Justin Faulk and Dougie Hamilton to shutdown blueliners Jaccob Slavin and Brett Pesce.
“We know it starts with Ovechkin and guys like Backstrom, Kuznetsov,” Pesce said. “Their first to fourth line, they have so much skill. We know that; we have to game plan for it. It’s a big challenge. It’s exciting to have the opportunity to face them and try and shut them down. As a defenseman, that’s the first thing I take pride in.”
Carolina’s also going to need good goaltending. Fortunately, the combination of Petr Mrazek and Curtis McElhinney have been up to the task all season.
Mrazek, in particular, enters the playoffs on a roll, having won 11 of his last 13 starts. Mrazek should be up to the task in the postseason, with a .927 save percentage and 1.98 goals-against average in 10 career playoff starts.
“I think the pressure’s high, the thing that you play for every game matters big time,” Mrazek said. “It’s been fun. All factors that should put you in a better position to be a better goalie.”
On the offensive side of the puck, Carolina will need all hands on deck against Capitals goalie Brayden Holtby. Holtby had a fairly pedestrian regular season with a 2.82 goals-against average and .911 save percentage but knows how to get it going in the playoffs. He went 16-7 with a .922 save percentage, 2.16 goalsagainst average and two shoutouts in Washington’s title run last year.
So, the Canes need to click on all cylinders. That starts with leading scorer Sebastian Aho, who set a career high with 30 goals and 83 points in the regular season. Aho, however, slumped down the stretch, with no goals and six points in his last 14 games.
Playing the Capitals could be just what the doctor ordered for Aho. Over his career, he has eight goals and 17 points in 12 games against Washington, his most against any team.
“Obviously you want to produce some points, but it’s all about wins this time of year,” Aho said. “That’s all that matters, and if we can get those wins, I’m happy.”
Joining Aho on the top line is forward Nino Niederreiter, who put up 14 goals and 30 points in 36 games since joining Carolina via a trade with the Minnesota Wild in January.
Rounding out that trio is Williams, who Carolina will be counting on big time after a 23-goal, 53-point regular season given his experience. Williams has 36 goals and 94 points in 140 career playoff games, and has earned the nickname “Mr. Game 7” for his penchant for scoring clutch goals in the postseason.
“If you’re looking at the old ‘We’re underdogs; we’re this,’ obviously we’re underdogs,” Williams said. “We’re playing against the defending Stanley Cup Champions. But do we feel like we are? No. We’re going to work our tails off and see how good we can be.”
Carolina will also be relying on Teravainen, who set a new career high with 76 points this season, to help lead the way, and the likes of Staal, Faulk, Hamilton and forwards Andrei Svechnikov, Micheal Ferland, Lucas Wallmark and Brock Mcginn to provide depth scoring.
While this is a tall task against Washington, Carolina has had a great year and is red hot coming into the playoffs. The Canes have the needed ingredients for playoff success and shouldn’t be counted out.
It’s a tough challenge, but it’s one these Hurricanes are ready to meet.
“Playoff series, it’s unlike any other thing,” Williams said. “We know who we’re going to see for the next two weeks. We know who we’re going to play. We know what kind of team they are. It’s just, at the end of the series, you either want to really, really make them earn it, or you want to be able to push them out of it. By saying that, at some point, somebody’s going to give and say it’s too hard. We’ve got to make sure it’s not us.”
The best-of-seven series will start Thursday at Capital One Arena with a 7:30 p.m. puck drop. Game two is Saturday at Capital One at 3 p.m. Games three and four at PNC Arena will be Monday, April 15 and Thursday, April 18 respectively. Game five would be Saturday, April 20 in DC, game six Monday, April 22 and game seven Wednesday, April 24 in Washington.
KAYDEE GAWLIK/TECHNICIAN Forward Justin Williams dribbles the puck into Pittsburgh Penguins territory on Tuesday, March 19, 2019 in PNC Arena. Williams scored one goal after three shots on goal. The Canes won at home, 3-2.
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