UC Irvine - A Team on the Upswing

January 23, 2005

 

UC Irvine defeated Cal Poly Pomona for the second time in less than 24 hours on Sunday at Water City Roller Hockey in Marina, CA.  Irvine's 7-2 victory began only 46 seconds in when Brian Gorda swept past Pomona's defense and beat goalie Mark Marquez between the legs.  Pomona came out with an apparent lack of intensity in the first period, allowing Irvine to skate away with a three goal lead.  In order to keep up with the sharp shooting Irvine forwards, Pomona played a mor ephysical game.  With this style, however, Pomona found many of their players in the penalty box.  Irvine capitalized on three of their five power play advantages. 

 

While Pomona fans explained that "it always takes Pomona a period to get started," Irvine continued their onslaught with intense skating by forward Jefferey Maganis.  Maganis' flashy stickhandling set up multiple plays that ended on a goal or created scoring opportunities for the other Irvine forwards.  Erik Chen backstopped the Irvine Anteaters and played a near perfect game.  The two goals which Pomona scored were both on power plays.  Despite those two goals, Chens' solid butterfly style netminding kept Pomona from making it any closer of a game.  Eric Bachman, a defenseman for Irvine, explained where this year's success has come from.  "We picked up some new skaters, but having more practices than last year has greatly improved our team," said Bachman. 

 

Three players for Irvine tallied two goals in the game; Brian Gorda, Charles Middloten, and Gram Gerrard.  Pomona's Tom Wiebe and Jonathan Cochran scored both on two separate power plays in the third period for Pomona.  Both teams head out to West Covina on January 29-30 for their final regular season events.  Both teams will sit idle and wait for the remainder of the WCRHL Division I teams to finish their season on February 5 and 19.  Irvine looks solid for a high playoff seed, while Pomona is attempting to make a run towards that ever-elusive 8th playoff spot.

Written by Cory Harris