Rink Report: UND Hockey Aims to Reach Higher Level of Play in Second Half

Brad Berry is content with UND's first half

GRAND FORKS, N.D —After scoring a total of 57 goals and earning ten wins, head coach Brad Berry is far from displeased with how his young group has ended the first-half of the regular season.

“We’re pretty content with what we’re doing,” Berry said. “To be 10-5-5 with a young group and growing on the road and at home we’ll take it. But knowing that we want more, and you can see there’s a push. The guys want to get better and they know there’s another level to get to.”

Berry says he’s done a lot of reflection since the teams final series in St. Cloud, and he’s already focused on making a schedule and practice plan to bring his team to that next level.

“We know we have to be better in a lot of different areas to get to where we want to go, but wanting more is making sure that we get better every day in practice and in games,” Berry said. “Some of the areas we want to clean up and we’re getting better are starts of a game. I thought over the course of the last two weekends against Western and St. Cloud we’ve started extremely well. Now it’s a matter of not chasing games and trying to have leads early on in games and that’s part of the offensive side of the game we’re going to try and work on more.”

Berry also says he’s been impressed with how well his team has meshed together despite utilizing 20 different lineups in 20 games so far this season.

“I think when you talk about the different line combinations and different things like that, love it. I’ve been here for a long time and this is one of the tightest groups we’ve had and when you have a tight group you have a chance for success.”

UND will return to conference play against Omaha on Jan. 5th.