Coach Greg Stahthis commented after the game that he was very proud of his teams effort in the third period against Georgia. But he questioned why the team can’t play three good periods of hockey.

Last week they played two good periods and tonight just one. This is a very young team and the consistency is not there. Losing four key players in the first half also hurt the chemistry of the team and forced me to juggle lines. We had a great first half and a good season.

I look forward to next year with many returning players. We will lose just three regular line players to graduation and I believe, with some off season training,

next year’s team can play championship caliber in the years to come.

It was a great year for all of my seniors and congratulations to the three who are scheduled to depart.

Dom Scola, who couldn’t play in 2nd half due to a knee injury, Kyle Stage, who came into his own this season and had a great year and finally to my Captain and Team Leader Mike Zaucha. Mike did so much to bring this team together and I certainly enjoyed having him on the team. I wish all of the Seniors my best.

Coach Greg Stathis commented after the Saturday night game:

I was extremely pleased with the effort after the five week layoff. The team moved the puck very well and the flow was great.

Paul Dietrick made a good first impression in his first game of the season with a hat trick. Also coming back was Jonathan Rosenfield, who was injured in the first half of last year. He saw some limited

ice time but will gain more as he adapts to the other players.

Overall, I was very happy with the performance both offensively and defensively. And I can’t go without saying how much I feel that the Pep Band adds to the overall feeling in the arena. Our guys really feed off their enthusiasm.

I am looking forward to the Rumble in the Rink Tournament in Savannah this weekend and feel we will be prepared for both Florida State and Georgia.

Coach Greg Stathis commented after the Saturday night game.

We had a complete breakdown in the KSU game and beat ourselves. This was the worst game of the season. We were intimidated by the rough play of KSU and our special teams could not take advantage of the numerous power plays.

I feel that Whitney Yiu and Christian Gattung played with no fear for most of the game. I was disappointed we didn’t give Kennesaw a better game.

I give credit to the team for erasing that game from their memory and coming out and beating South Florida on Saturday night.

We played a strong first 10 minutes, but then made some mistakes and were not as confident for the balance of the first and most of the second period. I was really pleased with the third period play, especially scoring a power play goal and two short handed goals to wrap up the game.

The team battled back in the entire game despite being short on the bench with injuries to Tom Porter and Dom Scola who both missed the game.

It was a very important win for us to go on the break with a win, and to finish the first half 12-2 is very impressive for this program. The offensive line of the game was Dan Sweeney, Whitney Yiu and Josh Krisinger.

Coach Greg Stathis commented after game that he thought the Jackets were a bit sluggish in the first period but kept up with the Longhorns in a scoreless period.

Keys to the period were back to back penalty kills by the defense and tenacious fore checking by Whitney Yiu. In the second period, the team was energized by a great individual effort by Hunter Gahl during a penalty kill to score the first GT goal.

Coach said that getting a 4-0 lead with about 10 minutes left was normally enough for a victory, but some calls

that kept Tech in the box and shorthanded, gave Texas the opportunity to get back in the game.

Coach said that you have to give Texas credit for not giving up. But after the game was tied, the team had became tentative and lost much of their aggressiveness.

Coach was real proud of Nick Rice who came up big in the shoot out stopping all five shots. Hunter Gahl was the star of the game with his hat trick and game winner in the shoot out.

Coach Greg Stathis commented after the second Cincinnati game on Saturday night that the two game sweep was nice, but he was disappointed with the teams performance on Friday night. He mentioned it was the worst performance of the year; the team was extremely sluggish which was carried over from a poor practice on Thursday night.

Coach Stathis said the team came back on Saturday and played much better showing character to come back and play as well as they did. The team had a few injuries which meant mixing some

lines, but overall, the team bounced back to play three aggressive periods.

Highlight players were Whitney Yiu and Brendan O’Leary. Defense did their job and kept the shots on goalie Nick Rice to a minimum. It was an accomplishment to shut this team down since they scored 37 goals the weekend before.

On a side note, Coach Greg mentioned that the opening ceremony honoring Lt. Tyler Brown (fallen soldier) and all veterans on Friday was the most touching he has seen in his 15 years of coaching Tech hockey.

Coach Greg Stathis commented after the Duke game that the victory over Duke was one of the biggest wins for the program in the past seven years.

This was a great Duke team that was undefeated and being a Division II team, this was big for the boys. The team played great in the first period. The fore-checking was excellent, goal keeping was solid and defense strong.

In the second period, the team lost a little control with penalties and if it wasn’t for Goalie Nick Rice, who by the way played his best game of the season, it could have been a disaster period.

The third was very balanced, but we appeared to be playing not to lose, protecting the 1-0 lead. After Duke scored to tie the game, the team took it up another notch and got the winning goal with less than five minutes to play. The 5 on 3 penalty kill was huge by our defense and the winning goal by Drew Baker was a fantastic effort.

I was really impressed with the individual effort by Dominic Scola. He was determined to get to the net and made a great effort to score the goal. This was a big character test for this young team and now I think that are beginning to believe in themselves.

As for the first game of the series against UNC, I felt that the team was road weary with the long drive and played a very lousy first four minutes. Nick Rice kept us in the game.

Then in the 2nd period, UNC got the power play goal and it reminded me of the Stanford game where we gave up a 1-0 lead but then scored 12 straight. This time it was seven unanswered goals. Hunter Gahl played real well and stood out on both defense and his offensive zone play.

Finally, I was very pleased again with the parent/friends turnout for the series. We hope we gave them a thrilling weekend. This is a team that the fans need to see and I hope the student body will come out this weekend against Cincinnati.

Coach Stathis was pleased yet disturbed after the 7-2 victory over Clemson on Friday night. Coach mentioned that the kids came out very hard in the first period and skated much better than their previous game against Rafford.

They were up against a much improved Clemson team that gained size and speed from last year’s team. The team jumped to a two goal lead in the first period and out shot the Tigers 20-4. But then the trouble came.

Coach was not happy with the un-disciplined play in the second period. The team took too many penalties from mental lapses that let Clemson back in the game. The coach mentioned that this is too good a team to let that happen.

When Clemson scored on a penalty shot mid-way through the second period, it gave the Tigers momentum and put more pressure on our guys.

You can’t win hockey games against good teams doing this. The defense gave up too many odd man rushes as they tried to pinch in the offensive zone.

Luckily, Tech scored two goals at the end of the period to slow down Old Mo. After a spirited talk during the ice break, Coach was extremely pleased with third period of play. He was pleased with how the defense came around, played more conservatively and shutdown the Clemson attack.

Coach Greg was very pleased with the nice crowd that included students, the pep band and the alumni.

Coach did mention that this team has lots of potential, but needs to take it up a notch and become more emotional and intense to be able to play with the top teams in the ACHA Division 3 tier.

Coach Greg Stathis commented after the second game on Saturday that he thought his team played phenomenal in game one. They did everything he asked including using their team speed and a great passing game to open up the offense.

The Jackets had 61 shots and coach complimented the Radford goalie for keeping his team in the game with outstanding saves. The coach was disappointed with the team’s performance for the first two periods of game two.

The team was flat, uninspired and lazy with passes and fore-checking. The coach was not happy indicating some players were not doing their job, relying on other team members to pick up the slack.

The result was Radford stayed in the game with just a one goal deficit after two periods.

In fact, the Coach mentioned that Nick Rice and the defense kept them in the game. But the team came out fired up in the third, skated real hard, fought off a two man disadvantage and finally put the game away. Coach commented that Radford has some very good skill players, strong goal-tending but didn’t play well as a team during this series.

Finally, the Coach was very pleased with the parent/friends and student turnout for the series and hopes that more students and fans will come out to see this very exciting team during the next few weeks of games at the MIC.

Coach Greg Stathis commented after the second game that he thought his team played real well in both games and adapted well to the smaller ice surface at the Belmont Ice Palace.

He felt the two week layoff hurt the team early in the first game. Despite that, the team was more focused and played a lot better in the second game with better passes and play set-up.

He was particularly proud of the Dominic Scola line of Scola, Brian O’Connor and Brendan O’Leary. They scored seven goals and had four assists. Coach Stathis also commented that the defense stepped up and played real well, limiting shot opportunities for Stanford.

Goalie Nick Rice was more focused in

these two games and came up big with some very important saves, especially in game two.

Of particular note, Coach Greg was pleased with Drew Myers, a limited role player, who had a goal in the third period and defenseman Hunter Gahl, who scored two short handed goals in the second game.

He was proud of the team that did not get frustrated in the early going of the 2nd game when they couldn’t score off multiple shots in period one. It was a good character test for the team.

Finally, the Coach was real pleased with the parent/friends of GT turnout for the weekend series. The fans were well rewarded with the outstanding play of the young Yellow Jackets.

Coach Greg Stathis commented after the Tennessee game that he was extremely pleased with the opening weekend results. It has been the best beginning in years as the team played very well on the road.

This is a very young aggressive team that has lots of speed and he feels outplayed both Vanderbilt and Tennessee.

The team had 104 shots in the two games, but ran into two very hot

goaltenders that made the difference in the one goal loss against the Volunteers.

Tennessee will have an good season due to their much improved roster of speedy, gifted players and was a great test for the young GT squad.

“Obviously I was not happy with the results splitting the two games, but I was extremely happy with the effort”, said Coach Stathis.