BELOIT — It would be easy to point out that Wednesday night’s 6-0 romp over visiting Whitefish Bay was an example of what Beloit Memorial’s hockey team can achieve if it avoids the penalty box.
That’s a lesson head coach James Hoey has been trying to hammer home since day one.
But that’s just one area the team needed to show improvement in and to their credit, it was obvious Wednesday at Edwards Ice Arena, the Purple Knights haven’t given up on anything this season.
“Honestly, some of our outcomes have been because of the penalties, but that’s just part of it,” said Cole Rowald, who recorded his third hat trick (three goals) of the season and second straight. “This is one of the best teams I’ve played on. We have a lot of potential. A lot of talent. We show streaks of how good we can be. We play well for a period or two. We need to put together three periods.”
This game was about as close they’ve come to playing a complete game. There still were a few too many penalties (seven) and they still took a lot of shots (44) they didn’t quite capitalize on, but this was still a good step forward.
“The big thing for us is that this group has responded really well to all the adversity we’ve had,” Rowald said. “Everyone has stayed together as a team. We still have a few games to go in the regular season and we’re still working hard. This was a good day and hopefully by the time playoffs roll around when it really matters we’ll be ready.”
Beloit set the tone against the Storm in the first period with goals by Max Allen and Rowald.
“It helps to get big guys like Cole in front of the net,” Hoey said. “A lot of his goals lately have been rebound goals. He’s a tough guy to move out of there. That’s what we’ve really tried to work on, crashing the net and getting those rebound shots. We don’t score a lot having a guy come down and snipe the goalie.”
“We’re working on scoring on those rebounds and it is starting to click a little more,” Rowald said “This game will be a good confidence booster going into another big one tomorrow night.”
The Knights (7-15-0), who travel to Janesville to play the Bluebirds, are still seeking their first Big Eight win of the season.
Beloit put the game away against Whitefish Bay by scoring three more two goals, two on power plays. Rowald made it 3-0 off assists by Jayden Piccione and Payton Whalen and Gavin Brady added the fourth goal on assists from Brayden Lane and Max Allen. The final goal of the period came at 12:38 by Preston Mayberry off Luke Staack’s assist.
The lone goal of the third period was another power-play tally by Rowald off assists from Max Allen and Piccione.
“The same thing happened against Kettle Moraine,” Hoey said. “We scored several power-play goals. We took some penalties in the second period, but none in the third. Believe me, I would rather play with more guys on the ice than less. Finally a good complete game. We stayed out of the box for the most part. We did what we were supposed to on offense and we got a shutout out of our goalie (Gentry Grant with 21 saves). When we play like that we can stay with most teams.
“We haven’t won as many games as we hoped we would this season, but if we get hot now we can make some noise in the playoffs and make up for it.”
• NOTES: The bad news for the Knights was on the injury front. Turner senior forward Sam Rowald was lost for the season recently due to a broken collarbone and Clinton senior forward Nathan Anastasi was unavailable Wednesday due to a knee injury.
• BOXSCORE:
BELOIT 6, WHITEFISH BAY 0
Whitefish Bay 0 0 0 — 0
B. Memorial 2 3 1 — 6
FIRST PERIOD: BM, Max Allen (Mayberry, C. Rowald), 12:09; BM, C. Rowald (Max Allen, Whalen), 15:01 (pp).
SECOND PERIOD: BM, C. Rowald (Piccione, Whalen), 5:26 (pp); BM, Brady (Lane, Max Allen), 11:42 (pp); BM, Mayberry (Staack), 12:38.
THIRD PERIOD: BM, C. Rowald (Max Allen, Piccione), 10:08 (pp).
Saves: WB, Salzer 15-19-10-44, BM, Grant 8-8-5-21. Penalties: WB, 10-20, BM 7-14.
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