St. Cyr, Dorwart Power Shutout of Miami, 4-0
Oxford, Ohio – Freshman Karsen Dorwart had a natural hat trick and goaltender Dylan St. Cyr had 39 saves as the No. 16/16 Michigan State hockey team scored a 4-0 win at Miami on Saturday to complete a non-conference weekend sweep.
The Spartans (11-4-1) had their fourth weekend sweep of the season and pull within one win of their 2021-22 total of 12 victories. MSU has won seven of its last eight games, the lone loss in that stretch a 4-3 setback last Friday at No. 6 Penn State.
Dorwart scored the first three goals of the game for the visiting Spartans, turning a 1-0 lead in the first intermission into a 3-0 lead after two, and Russell added a fourth goal for MSU in the third period. St. Cyr had 12 saves in the first and third periods and 15 in the middle frame for his 10th victory of the season and 12th career shutout.
The Spartans return to Big Ten play next weekend, hosting Minnesota in a battle of the top two teams in the Conference standings. The No. 2 Golden Gophers and MSU face off at 6:30 pm on Friday in the first game of the series, and 6 pm in game two Saturday. Both games will air live on Big Ten Network.
STATISTICS OF NOTE
- Karsen Dorwart is the third Spartan to record a hat trick this season – both Erik Middendorf (four goals) and Jagger Joshua did it in earlier games. He takes over the team’s goal-scoring lead with seven tallies.
- Dorwart had a four-assist game earlier this season against LIU (the most assists in a single game by any Division I player this season), and now adds a hat trick to his freshman year resume.
- Nicolas Muller had two assists, and four total on the weekend.
- David Gucciardi had a pair of helpers, his first multiple-point game of the season.
- Daniel Russell had a third-period score, his sixth goal of the season. He and Dorwart are tied atop the Spartan scoring chart with 17 points.
- Matt Basgall surpassed the 10-point mark in the first period, the eighth player to do it this season.
- Dylan St. Cyr had 39 saves, his ninth consecutive games with 30 saves or more. He improves to 10-4-1 on the season and is one victory shy of tying his single-season victories mark. The shutout was his second of the season and 12th of his career.
- Michigan State has now scored four goals or more nine times this season.
- The Spartans scored 73 goals in the 2021-22 season, and have 58 through 16 games this year.
First Period: Miami went with senior Logan Neaton in net on Saturday, and he was certainly up to the task, tuning away the first 10 shots he saw, including a pair of flurries while MSU was skating 5-on-3 midway through the period. The Spartans broke through at 17:05 with the first goal of the game – it was shortly after another power play chance expired (their third of the period) – Matt Basgall took the pass from Muller at the right point and went across the high slot to Karsen Dorwart, who took a stride into the top of the left circle and wristed it home for the 1-0 lead.
Second Period: Dorwart scored twice in the first 3:08 of the middle period to inflate the Spartan lead to 3-0. The first one came as David Gucciardi saved the puck from exiting the zone and threw it towards Dorwart in the right circle. It bounced en route, and Dorwart took a swipe that beat Neaton low stick-side. The third goal came as the Spartans were moving the puck well – Nicolas Muller took a shot from the right circle, which was saved by Neaton – but Joshua was stationed at the right post and slid it across the crease for a crashing Dorwart to complete the hat trick.
Third Period: Daniel Russell provided MSU with an insurance goal in the third period, as David Gucciardi collected a loose puck and charged through the neutral zone and to the right hash mark to feed the freshman Russell put his backhander over the shoulder of Neaton to score his sixth goal of the season. St. Cyr kept the home team from giving its fans anything to cheer about with 12 third-period saves to preserve
