Offense Explodes for Cleary as Hockey Sweeps Rochester

(Howell, MI)-- After having to take an extra week off for health and safety precautions, the Cleary Cougars hockey team was back in action against the WHAC rival Rochester University Warriors this weekend, and swept the weekend series with two dominant victories.

In Game 1:  Cleary would score the first 6 goals of the game, with Wes Smith scoring in the opening minutes with assists from Brendyn Galloner and Zach Perry.  Marc Alexander added the team's second goal, unassisted, just 50 seconds later.  After some back and forth possession, Zack Wiener scored, with assists from Ben Gledhow and Marc Alexander.  Wes Smith would make it 4-0 when he slotted one home with an assist from Riley Finlay, who made his season debut in the game.  Cam Thomas would score an unassisted goal to make it 5-0, and just a couple minutes later, Justin Reddy added his first goal of the game to make it 6-0 after 20 minutes of action.  Rochester would claw back into the action in the 2nd period, when they scored 3 unanswered goals to make it 6-3, but right before the horn sounded to end the period, Zack Wiener scored his 2nd goal, with an assist from Cam Thomas.  Cleary would hold a 7-3 lead after 2 periods.  Rochester would add their final goal early in the final stanza, and the rest of the game was all Cougars, with goals from Reddy (unassisted), Gledhow (from Wiener), and Gledhow (from Smith).  Koby Kebbe earned the victory (2-9 record).

In Game 2:  Cleary and Rochester traded goals in the first 90 seconds, with Cleary's goal coming from Ben Gledhow, assisted by Riley Finlay and Wes Smith.  Rochester answered 30 seconds later, but it would be the only goal they could muster in the game, and Cleary would score the next 7 goals unanswered to secure an 8-1 victory.  Cleary added two more first period goals from Cam Thomas (from Galloner and Zach Perry), and Zack Wiener (from Thomas and Gledhow).  Erik Wafer got into the action in the second stanza with an assist from Perry, and Cam Thomas scored his second goal of the game on a power play (from Gardiner and Perry), to make it 5-1.  Cleary's three 3rd period goals were scored by Gardiner (from Smith and Gledhow), Perry (from Josh Aitken and Dalton Cummings), and Galloner (from Gledhow and Gardiner).  
Tyler Krasofsky was stellar in goal, making 19 saves on 20 shots faced to improve to 2-4 on the season. 
Cleary improves to 5-15-0, 4-12-0 in WHACtion, and will take on the Blue Devils of Lawrence Tech next weekend in a two game series.  Friday's game will be played at the Farmington Hills Ice Arena with the puck dropping at 5:00 PM, and Saturday will be played at the 140 Ice Den with the game starting at 3:30 PM.

Game Notes: The series featured the season debuts of Josh Aitken and Riley Finlay