The UTEP men’s hockey club swept the TCU Horned Frogs, 3-1 on Friday night (Nov. 10) and 3-2 in overtime on Saturday night (Nov. 11) to improve their record to 9-8 overall and 8-3 in conference play and lead themselves closer to the top of the pack in the Texas Collegiate Hockey Conference (TCHC).
On Friday, late in the 1st period, Dominik Taras would put the Miners on the board first with a goal assisted by Jon Sanca and Kevin Duncan.
A TCU penalty at the start of the second period put the Miners on the power play and Kevin Duncan scored 31 seconds in with an assist by Jon Sanca to put the Miners up by two goals.
Early in the third period, the Horned Frogs got a shot passed by Lazarski to come within one goal of the Miners. The third period would see plenty of time spent in the penalty box by both teams.
Jorge Duenas was called for a checking-from-behind penalty and was ejected from the game in the period.
With two minutes remaining in the game, sophomore Jon Sanca gave the Miners a two goal lead off the feed from brother Matt Sanca and Dominic Taras. With 49 seconds left in the 3rd, a fight broke out near the Miner net and Jason Moore was called for a roughing penalty and Mackenzie Hollis got called for fighting resulting in a game misconducted and was ejected from the game.
Miners took game one with a final score, 3-1.
Back on Saturday afternoon for game two, TCU scored the only goal of the period and led the Miners 1-0 at the end of the first period.
Matt Sanca and Dominik Taras scored back to back goals within seconds of each other to give the Miners their first lead of the game. But, the Horned Frogs answered back and the teams headed to the locker room tied at two a piece.
A nice save by Lazarski late in the 3rd kept the score tied at two and the game headed into overtime.
Set up nicely by Matt Sanca, Dominik Taraswas able to find the back of the net and the Miners sweep the Horned Frogs with the 3-2 overtime win.
With the sweep over the weekend, the Miners (9-8, 8-3 TCHC) sit in fourth place but are just three games behind first-place Texas A&M (11-1) and trail closely behind No. 2 Texas (10-1) and No. 3 Dallas Baptist (9-4)
The Miners will take two weeks off, then will close out the fall semester at home on Dec. 2-3 against the North Texas Mean Green.
All UTEP students receive free admission to all home games at the El Paso County Events Center with a valid student ID, while all other tickets are at a general admission cost of $7 per ticket.
