The SRJC hockey team was not kidding when players said the team would not back down until a national championship title was theirs. With three games under their belt, the Polar Bears are undefeated and proving SRJC is a force to be reckoned with.
In front of boisterous hockey fans at Snoopy’s Home Ice Sept. 14, the Polar Bears beat U.C. Berkeley in an intense 10-7 win. It was a heated battle right out the gate: with every whistle, players were at each other’s throats, neither team backing down from the challenge.
SRJC lead Berkeley into the second period before Cal freshman Theo Haboucha tied it up at five goals apiece. A thunderous “Let’s go JC!” chant echoed through the rink encouraging SRJC to re-take the lead and it was a Polar Bear rookie who answered the call. Defenseman Chris Whitten barreled a shot past the Cal goaltender to score his first goal in a Polar Bears’ uniform and put SRJC up 6-5.
“Scoring the goal took some pressure off , being that it’s the first game with a new team,” Whitten said. “It was a good feeling contributing to the team to get the win.”
SRJC would keep Cal at bay, despite Berkeley scoring twice in the third period. But the Polar Bears stayed resilient to the very end, adding on four more goals, including an incredible shot by John Hutton with 49 seconds left on the clock.
Several players contributed to the win, with goals by Alexi Kulikouskiy (3), Hutton (2 goals, 2 assists) and Spencer Wright (2). Whitten– along with Josiah Nikkel and Don Coyle–each had one goal in their Polar Bear debut.
Even with a seven-month absence from the ice, the Polar Bears looked sharp in the team’s first match. But with several new players, including two freshman goalies (Jacob Pavsek and Pat Vrba), SRJC looked to improve on its success against Cal.
The Polar Bears’ traveled to Vacaville Sept. 21 to face the Sacramento State University Hornets in the first match of a two-game series. SRJC began slow, allowing the Hornets to score twice before Kulikouskiy put SRJC on the board halfway through the second period.
A goal-for-goal volley took place until Whitten scored with a minute and a half left in the game to give SRJC the lead. Nikkel would add another goal just seconds before the clock ran out. The Polar Bears won the first game, 8-6.
“We started out slow and had a couple of big penalties that set us back,” Nikkel said. “But we picked it up and focused on our game and ended up pulling through in the last couple of minutes.”
The Polar Bears returned to Snoopy’s Sept. 22 for the second game against Sac State, hoping the high-energy of the home crowd would give the team the edge they needed to win.
Almost immediately after the puck dropped SRJC scored its first goal. With an assist by Kulikouskiy, Coyle blasted a shot past the Sac State goaltender nine seconds into the game. From that moment on the Polar Bears controlled the ice.
The Hornets skated like a completely different team than the one that nearly beat SRJC the day before and the Polar Bears capitalized on the team’s mistakes.
“It seems that after we put in a few early they kind of started skating on their heels and weren’t willing to play the body and get going as they did yesterday,” Coyle said. “Early goals lead to team’s folding. And that is when the flood gates opened and we started scoring a lot more goals.”
By the end of the second period, the Polar Bears were up 12-0. Even with a commanding lead, SRJC kept the pressure on the Hornets until the very end. Sac State scored twice in the third period, but it wasn’t enough. SRJC defeated Sac State 20-2.
Four Polar Bear players had multiple goals, including Coyle (6), Whitten (4), Nikkel (3) and forward Willis Swift (3). The team is continuing to play with great chemistry and will now begin a series of games that will definitely test players strengths as a whole.
SRJC will travel to Colorado Sept. 28-29 to take on the University of Colorado and Colorado State University. Facing teams they rarely see in competition, the Polar Bears are confident they have what it takes to keep the impressive standards they already set this season.
“We are excited about heading out on this road trip to Colorado,” Kulikouskiy said. “We are preparing for a nail-biter, a couple one-goal games. It’s gonna be a battle but we are confident in our game and I think we are going to do great.”
After the team returns from Colorado, SRJC will take on Stanford University Oct. 5 at Stanford before returning home Oct. 13 to face U.C. Davis. The game will start at 8:30 p.m. at Snoopy’s Home Ice in Santa Rosa.
For more information, please visit www.santarosahockey.com
