Lansing Hot Rods Weekend Recap

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 8^th 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 16^th 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 8^th, 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 16^th 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 9^th 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 29^th 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