The MSU spartans avenged Michigan's Friday night victory with a quite
exciting 3-1 victory Saturday night at Munn arena. In some ways, the
game was almost a mirror image of what happened Friday.
 
First score of the game was Brian Murray's shorthanded goal at 15:52 of
the second. That one was a 2 on 1 breakaway that required great
teamwork in front of Michigan's goal. Shields held tough in front of
Murray's approach from the right. Murray passed off to a teammate on
the left, with Shields covering his right side of the net quickly
again. Shields couldn't quite cover quickly enough to his left, however,
as Murray took a return pass and stuffed it home.
 
Michigan's Stiver answered a little over a minute later flipping in his
own rebound to tie it at 1 all.
 
MSU's winning goal came with 4:54 left in the game when he took a drop
pass from Rem Murray at the top of the right circle and fired in a
quick slap shot from the blue line with no traffic in front of him.
 
The final 4 minutes saw MSU playing extremely defensively and
protecting its one goal lead, even in the face of a strong Michigan
barrage with Shields benched in favor of an extra attacker in the final
minute. Final goal came from Smolinski into the empty net with 1 second
left.
 
As the players were lining up for handshakes, UM's Cam Stewart started
a shoving match with MSU. A regular donneybrook erupted lasting about 5
minutes with several boxing matches, including even the goalies at
various locations on the ice. MSU's Bart Turner and UM's Aaron Ward
were most involved with each landing a number of good punches and each
drawing a game suspension. Others were hit with only minors. The fans
(sadly) joined in by throwing hundreds of cups over the glass setting a
bad example for my 3 year old son who decided to join in by tossing his
cup over the glass too. Ultimately the only handshaking was done by the
coaches with Red Berenson displaying some class by heading out to
center ice to shake hands and chat briefly with Ron Mason. Its great to
see that the coaches at least still exhibit some signs of good
sportsmanship!
 
In goal: MSU: Buzak (23 saves); UM: Shields (28 saves)
 
-Terry