The 2015 CILL season started off with a
bang for the Lansing Hot Rods who had 3 games in 2 days starting on
Saturday August 8th at the Eagle Ice Center in Grand
Rapids, MI. They first faced off against the Demons of Cleveland,
the game would be the second meeting of the two teams in CILL
history. In their first meeting on August 16th of 2014,
the Hot Rods lost 5-9 and were looking for revenge on the beautiful
Saturday in Grand Rapids. However, LeBron must have made a star
appearance and played for Cleveland as the Hot Rods got trounced by a
score of 20-2. The lone goal scorers for the Hot Rods in the game
were #94 Aidan Jarmus (Winnipeg, MB) and Dakota Badder (Troy, MI),
with #11 Carlos Matta (DeWitt, MI) dishing out an assist. #16 Daric
Mueller’s (DeWitt, MI) first ever career start in CILL did not go
quite as planned, but he did have 33 saves in the game, which is
something he will look to build off of for the next game.
In the second game of the doubleheader
for Lansing on Saturday August 8th, the Pittsburgh Octane
came into the River City looking for another win as they also beat
the Hot Rods in their last meeting on August 16th of 2014.
Lansing was again unable to get their revenge from last year, but
the game was a little closer this time as they fell to the Octane by
a score of 10-20. Dakota Badder (Olivet College) was able to net a
whopping 4 goals, which bumped him to the Hot Rods current leading
scorer on the season, and he also dished out 2 assists, with #42 Kyle
Goehring (Fort Wayne, IN) and #99 Stan Mackey (Hartland, MI) each
adding in 2 goals as well. Even though Mueller let in 20 goals, he
did up his save number by 3 from the previous game to give him 36
saves for the game.
Other Notables: Carlos Matta (Indiana
Tech)(1G, 1A), #91 Kyle Borek (Lansing, MI) (0G, 1A), #5 Alex Novak
(South Holland, IL) (1G, 0A)
The final game of the weekend came on
Sunday August 9th in the first ever meeting against the
newly added CILL member, the Indianapolis Copperheads, the Lansing
Hot Rods picked up their first win of the season in comfortable
fashion, beating the Copperheads 18 to 7. It took a team effort to
get the W, as 11 different players contributed at least a point in
the game. Carlos Matta (Indiana Tech.), #23 Brandon Gates (Howell,
MI), and Alex Novak (Alma College) each earned a hat-trick scoring 3
goals, and Matta also had 4 assists to go along with his 3 goals.
#33 Nick Knauf (DeWitt, MI) put up big numbers too, contributing 2
goals and 3 assists to the victory. Mueller got his first career win
as a CILL goalie with his season high save percentage in the game
which was 83% and gave him a total of 35 saves on the game. The Hot
Rods will look to bump their record up to .500 when they play next on
August 29th against the Outlaws of Chicago at the Eagle
Ice Center of Grand Rapids, MI.
Other Notables: #13 Jordan Nurimko
(Lowell, MI) (1g, 0A), Kyle Goehring (Indiana Tech.) (1g, 0a), Kyle
Borek (Olivet College) (1g, 0a), Aidan Jarmus (Indiana Tech.) (1g,
0a), Stan Mackey (Ohio Valley Univ.) (2g, 0A), Jordan Brown (DeWitt,
MI) (0g, 1a), Dakota Badder (Olivet College) (0g, 1a), Josh Sejat (
Grand Rapids, MI) (2g, 1a).
Leaders after the
first weekend of games: Carlos Matta (4G,6A), Dakota Badder (5G,3A),
Nick Knauf (2G, 4A). Daric Mueller (46 GA, 105 SVs, 70 SV%). Full
player statistic can be viewed at
Player Stats
Look out for more Lansing Hot Rods
game recaps by Andrew Rolls as he takes over as the Hot Rods
journalists and reporter.
Andrew
Rolls is a Sports Management major at Grand Valley State University
and can be followed on twitter
@Spartan1225 and on Instagram
@ARolls12. You can see more articles of his at his sports blog at
www.rollsreport.weebly.com
