Box Score GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. – Davenport made its case for a Top-2 regional ranking as they dominated the top-ranked Adrian-Gold Bulldogs 8-5. The victory gives the Panthers a weekend sweep of both Hope and Adrian who came into the final ranking period No.1 and No. 2. Davenport, who has now won 10 of its last 12 games overall, improves to 26-5-1 on the year. The Panthers end the regular season next weekend with a Friday road trip to Michigan State and a home game against UM-Flint on Saturday.
After sweeping Hope for the first time in school history on Friday and Saturday, Davenport faced another stiff challenge on Sunday as the North Region's top-ranked team Adrian-Gold came to Patterson to complete a home and home series in which the Bulldogs won earlier this year in Adrian.
Davenport got the upper hand in the first period just 5:58 in when
Jordan Steger scored a power play goal on a rebound. Assists were credited to
Daniel Swink and
Donald Sund. The Panthers struck again just under five minutes later when Sund got his first goal of the game with
Branden Burton and
Jake Otto picking up the helpers.
Adrian did manage to get one back late in the opening period as they were given a penalty shot and Russ Rizzo converted to make it 2-1 DU after 20 minutes of play.
The Panthers came out flying in the second period and used four goals in the first ten minutes to put some distance between them and the Bulldogs.
Blake Damerow scored at 2:28 followed by Burton at 6:24, Sund at 7:40 and Swink at 9:56. Burton picked up two more assists during the run to give the rookie three so far in the game to go along with a goal.
After Adrian scored a short-handed goal to break the four-goal run by DU, Burton recorded his second goal of the game (5
th point) on assists from
Jake Otto and
Jordan Crawford to make it 7-2. The Bulldogs' Rizzo picked up the last tally of the period to give the senior a hat-trick but DU took a 7-3 lead into the second intermission.
After Adrian scored just 20 seconds into the third period to cut the lead to three goals,
Cody Mathieu got a nice feed from
Jake Otto to up the margin back to four with 16:39 remaining. The assist was the fourth of the night for Otto. Adrian posted one more goal in the game as DU walked away with the 8-5 victory.
Post-Game Notes
The win ends a four game skid against Adrian Gold as the Bulldogs won all three meetings a year ago and beat DU earlier this season in Adrian…DU will face No. 3 Um-Flint on Saturday and No. 5 MSU on Friday to end the regular season
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