The weekend’s first matchup of Horned Frogs and Red Raiders came on the ice as the TCU men’s hockey squad laced up their skates against Texas Tech on Friday.
The Texas Tech offense looked reminiscent of its football team, scoring early and often.
The Red Raiders scored their first goal less than a minute into the game and never looked back as they cruised to a 10-1 victory.
“The score isn’t a good reflection of the game,” sophomore defenseman Michael Authier said. “Our teams are pretty evenly matched, they just jumped out on us tonight.”
The Horned Frogs were held scoreless until midway through the third period when defenseman Jon Helton scored TCU’s lone goal.
Junior forward Eric Stockley said that they would be running an adjusted system when they played the Red Raiders again the following night.
Stockley added that being slightly undermanned made a difference in the game, as several Horned Frog players were sidelined due to injuries.
“It always tough to watch your home team from the sidelines,” said injured junior forward Michael Papes. “I know that in a game like this we couldn’t have made much difference, but you still want to be out there.”
Papes was held out due to an elbow injury sustained against SMU two weeks ago.
TCU coach Mike Caressimo also sited the shortened roster as a big problem, but said that the biggest problem was TCU’s inability to match Tech’s level of intensity.
The game was a homecoming of sorts for Caressimo who coached at Texas Tech prior to coming to TCU.
Caressimo said that he still knew half the Tech roster and had prepared TCU for them, but his team did not execute their game plan.