Writeup of California Cougars 5-1 loss to Santa Rosa Flyers on 2/4/12

The California Cougars returned to home ice but came up on the short end of the 5-1 score against Bantam #1 seed Santa Rosa Flyers on Saturday, Feb. 4.  The Cougars were again tested by the puck movement of the division leaders, but played tough throughout the physical game and won the battle of the boards and faceoff circle, but not the one that counts on the scoreboard.

The Flyers took a 1-0 lead on the game's first shift, and tallied another on a wraparound goal late in the first period.  After falling behind 3-0, Coach Rob Tenore voiced his concern about positioning to the team and juggled his lines, then received immediate results.  Adam Rosenduft passed to Pace Farbstein, who put a shot on net that rebounded to Captain Nash Berkowitz, who reached out and rifled in the rebound to cut it to 3-1.

The Cougars had a number of scoring chances but didn't put the puck on the net much in the first two periods, with just 4 official shots on goal in each frame.  Tal Horowitz stole the puck a number of times from the big Flyer forwards, and John Bohac had a couple of scoring opportunities turned aside. Daniel Schmidt and Ryan Bockholt each absorbed a number of tough checks as they fought for pucks, and Elliot Salazar played like a man possessed in dishing out 3 hits when the Flyers took the puck deep into the corners.

The Flyers seemed to wear down in the third period but the Cougars were unable to capitalize.  Matthew Lydon won a number of key draws late, and Shura Boz hustled to the net and mucked around the boards, but they were unable to push the puck over the line.

Kyle Tanaka used his speed to activate quickly when changing on the fly, and skated end to end to support his forwards. Erik West put the puck deep into Flyer territory so fleet defender-turned-forward Max Frenkel could chase down the pucks.  The Cougars nearly doubled their shot count in the final frame, taking 7 shots on goal to finish with 15, but the Flyers' defenders cleared the zone effectively and set up the final 2 goals.

Chase Bolling dished out 4 hard licks to wear down the Flyers while blocking several shots, and linemate Tom Beebe helped turn aside some Flyer forays into the offensive zone.  But the offense couldn't light the red light past the tiring opponents.  Netminder Carson Murison acrobatically used his waffle, trapper and twig to turn aside 33 shots, but couldn't stop the Flyers from claiming their 11th win of the season.  The 3-game losing streak dropped the Cougars to 5-5-2 on the year, with 12 points.

Game notes:

The Cougars failed to score on their only power play, and did not take any penalties in the physical affair.  Rosenduft led the team by winning 7 of 10 faceoff; Lydon won 5 and Berkowitz captured 4 draws.  The Cougars went 2-8 in the faceoff circle in the first period, but rallied and were 18-11 the rest of the way, finishing 20-19 on draws for the contest.  Berkowitz scored on 1 of his 4 shots on goal.  Despite the 5-1 final score, Boz, Rosenduft, and Schmidt finished with a 0 plus/minus rating.

Next Game: Saturday, Feb. 18 at 11:30am vs. Denver U Jr. Pioneers at Chandler South/PHX