UND Hockey Looking For Better Starts in Next Series

The Fighting Hawks came from behind to finish the weekend with a shootout victory on Friday and a win on Saturday

GRAND FORKS, N.D. — For the tenth time this season, North Dakota hockey finished the weekend without a loss, but this time it wasn’t as pretty as it has been in weekend’s past.

On both Friday and Saturday night against Miami (Ohio), the Fighting Hawks came out with a slow start, and went down 2-0 in the first period, forcing them to have to come from behind in order to avoid defeat in both games against the Redhawks.

That means as the team prepares for this upcoming matchup against the two-time defending champions Minnesota Duluth, the focus will be on getting things going as soon as puck drops.

“Everybody knows that first five minutes is a push from both teams to establish the game and establish momentum” head coach Brad Berry said. “From there, it just isn’t the first shift, it is the second and third shift after that that we have to build that momentum. That is going to be a thing that we stress this week and we’ll build our practices against game-like simulations or situations on doing that.”

“Bottom line, you got to just come out and do it. Be mentally prepared going into every game,” junior defenseman Matt Kiersted emphasized. “You want to start on time, you don’t want to wait halfway through the first period to start getting into it and being invested into the game. That starts today, early in the week, just kind of getting invested and preparing for Duluth all week and when it comes to Friday be ready to go.”