Zach Frank was confident going into Friday’s game.
He was confident that his Bobcats were the better team. He thought they could beat the No. 4 team in the country, Davenport.
That early confidence paid off; on Frank’s first shift on the night, he scored a goal.
Just over three minutes into the game, the Bobcats had a lead on the Eagles, who came into the game 10-0-1. Frank’s goal gave Ohio the lead it didn’t give up, and the Bobcats won 4-2.
The goal came off a faceoff. Frank, after winning the faceoff, was supposed to lay it off to one of his wingers. After laying it off, the puck just sat there. Frank turned around and shot it past the Davenport goalie.
“It was a good way to start the game, to say the least,” Frank said.
Frank’s play off the faceoff was key for Ohio all night, winning possessions to give the Bobcats chances, hoping for a goal.
“He had a great faceoff,” coach Sean Hogan said. “He did a lot of good things for us.”
Frank’s early goal gave Ohio the lead and some more confidence. Gianni Evangelisti filled in the rest.
Evangelisti, the Bobcats’ leading scorer from a year ago, got Ohio’s second goal. He received a pass from Alex Singley along the boards, and the Eagles’ defender thought he could take the puck away.
Then, Evangelisti made his run. He made the hit on the defender, took possession of the puck and slotted it into the net on a wrister.
“I decided to keep it simple and scored,” Evangelisti said.
Ohio would build its lead again, the third goal coming on the power play off the stick of Tyler Harkins.
To that point of the game, Ohio had a lot of chances. It ended the game with 36 shots on goal, with a lot of them just missing. The Bobcats even had a penalty shot that went high off the stick of Bryan Lubin. The chances were there, the Bobcats just couldn’t convert more of them. Something had to give.
Ohio had felt good with its three-goal lead with a ton of chances.Then, the nervous part of the game came. Davenport scored two goals, and the play got a little rough. Skaters were in and out of the penalty box for both teams, including the Eagles’ Keegan Miller, who took a five-minute major for butt-ending.
With play winding down and the clock ticking closer to a minute, Evangelisti put the game away for the Bobcats.
“It’s good to put the icing on the cake,” he said. “We avoided an empty net situation where they pull their goalie and it’s six-on-five.”
Winning the first game of the weekend series against the No. 4 team in the country would be good for any team. But it felt especially good for Ohio, because it thought it was the better team going in. It probably felt even better because the Bobcats handed the Eagles their first loss of the season.
“Honestly, if you’re 10-0 and come in here thinking you can beat us,” Frank said, “Good luck.”
