[
Box Score]
COLUMBUS, OH - Rookie forward
Andy Taranto scored his first career hat trick to lead the Alaska Nanooks to a 4-1 road victory over the Ohio State Buckeyes Friday night at Value City Arena in the Central Collegiate Hockey Association encounter. Sophomore defenseman
Bryant Molle also turned on the red light for the Nanooks and
Scott Greenham made 33 saves to secure Alaska's ninth league win and 12th of the season.
The first period saw the two teams exchange goals with the Nanooks striking first. A strong forecheck in the neutral zone caused an OSU turnover at their own blueline. Jumping on the lose puck was junior forward
Dustin Sather who found a wide open
Andy Taranto streaking on the left side as they skated in 2-on-1. Taranto went top shelf to beat OSU's Cal Heeter at 14:51 of the opening period.
Not resting on their laurels, the Buckeyes answered back just over a minute later as Cory Schneider converted a
Joe Sova turnover deep in Alaska's zone into the equalizer at 15:55. Schneider threw the puck at Greenham's five-hole and it looked as though he made the stop, but the puck just trickled through and across the goal line to make it 1-1.
Coming back after the first intermission, the blue and Gold came out firing on all cylinders. An obstruction-tripping penalty to the Buckeyes' Chris Reed in the opening minutes, gave Alaska the advantage it needed to regain the lead. With their top power-play unit on the attack, Nanook defenseman
Joe Sova fed his linemate
Aaron Gens at the center of the blueline who slid it to the left circle for Taranto who one-timed it past Heeter to make it 2-1 at 4:15 of the second stanza.
The Nanooks remained in control throughout the rest of the period outshooting their hosts 11-6. Alaska widened the gap at 14:41, when defenseman
Bryant Molle's shot from the point flew past two OSU defenders and Heeter for the 3-1 advantage on the scoreboard. Rookie rearguard
Justin Daigle and
Ron Meyers assisted on the play as Daigle earned his first career point as a Nanook.
Despite the two-goal disadvantage OSU did not relent as they poured on the offensive pressure in the final fame and outshot their guests 14-5. As a last chance effort, the Buckeyes pulled Heeter in favor of an extra attacker with 1:13 left in the game but it was to no avail as Greenham and his defensive corps were solid in the waning seconds of the game. Alaska capped the scoring at 19:05 when an unselfish
Dion Knelsen set up Taranto for his third tally of the evening.
The three-point victory propelled Alaska (12-9-8, 9-9-7-4 CCHA) back into fourth place in the conference standings and into a tie with Nebraska-Omaha, who topped Michigan 4-3. The Buckeyes (11-15-3, 9-11-3-1 CCHA) remained in 10th place with 31 points. Alaska and OSU face off Saturday for the series finale at 7:05 p.m. EST. Live play-by-play action can be heard on KSUA 91.5 FM in Fairbanks or online at
http://ksua.uaf.edu/.
