Detroit 8, Marquette 10

Hey, talk about a throwback. Trying to recap the whole seasons for both teams. It’s a lot of catching up to be done.

This is yet another example of a “close but no cigar” game that both in-state D-1 teams had plenty of this year (of course with the benefit of hindsight and knowing how good Marquette turned out to be).

Tempo Free

From the official box score, a look at the tempo-free stats:

Thanks to dominating on draws, Marquette had a real chance to absolutely dominate the possession game as well… but they couldn’t score consistently enough to capitalize on that advantage. Neither team was particularly good offensively, but the margin created by a near-perfect faceoff day won it for the Eagles.

Notes

That faceoff day is so, so bad. Sometimes you’re going to run up against really good specialists (and UDM didn’t quite get shut out, like happened in the Quinnipiac-Marist game back in April). Mike Sforza was your lone faceoff winner (1/7), while Greg Marzec and Jordan Yono were each shut out on six and seven attempts, respectively. Obviously the long-pole Yono was more likely in there to muck things up and get winnable 50/50 balls… but that didn’t happen either.

As mentioned in the tempo-free box section, despite the faceoff dominance, UDM didn’t face that much of a possession disadvantage. Marquette was winning draws, but failing to score on the ensuing possession, and the Titans were able to clear well enough to close that gap. Losing a game by two when you dealt with an 18-faceoff deficit is either a sign that you match up pretty well outside of that one area, or a missed opportunity (or of course, both).

Your defensive champion was goalie Jason Weber, who made 14 saves while allowing 10 goals. With seven GBs as well, he was responsible for ending a lot of those Marquette possessions. You’ll see over the course of these recaps that he didn’t live up to last year’s outstanding (.589 save percentage) performance, but he more than held his own between the pipes.

On the other end of the field, it was the Mark Anstead show. The sophomore attackman scored three goals on six shots and added three assists for a six-point performance. That’s a solid day at the office, no matter how you slice it. Andy Hebden added a goal and an assist, and midfielder Sean Birney had a pair of goals.

This was a fairly sloppy game (especially given a modest pace of play), with four EMO opportunities for each team. Marquette cashed in twice, Detroit only scored on one such chance – one of Anstead’s assists, with Alec Gilhooly getting the honor.

Here’s where things tilt heavily in the “missed opportunity” direction. That Gilhooly tally was followed by Hebden’s goal (with another Anstead assist), capping a four-goal Titan run at the end of the third quarter into the midway point of the fourth to give UDM a one-goal lead. Then, Marquette scored three goals to retake a two-goal lead with under two minutes to play, so things really slipped away form Detroit, which stood a strong chance to hold onto the game.

That’s another place the faceoff game reared its ugly head. No momentum to be gained (or maintained) if you can’t get possession after a goal. The Titans won their only faceoff with 1:29 remaining in the contest, and even that was off an Eagle faceoff violation. That’s right, Detroit didn’t win a single faceoff until after the final score of the game.

Elsewhere

Boxscore. Detroit recap. Marquette recap.

Up Next

The titans would finally get on the winning side of the ledger for the season against Manhattan.