KFDM COOP Posted January 6, 2007 Report Posted January 6, 2007 Wildcatters suffer unusual home letdown BEAUMONT - Anyone with a cell phone or portable radio in attendance at the Texas Wildcatters hockey game tonight might want to sit near the team's bench and shout score updates of the Dallas Cowboys playoff game.Although Wildcatters coach Malcolm Cameron's focus will be on his team's game against the Columbia Inferno, he might want to know how his favorite National Football League team - the Seattle Seahawks - fares against Dallas.Chances are, however, that Cameron will be busy enough trying to figure out a way for the Wildcatters to bounce back from Friday's 4-1 loss to Columbia that came in front of 2,003 fans at Ford Arena.Tonight's game, the second in a three-game series, begins at 7 p.m., the same time the Cowboys and Seahawks kick off."We got outworked in our own building by a hardworking team," Cameron said of his team's third loss in regulation in 15 home games.Rookie goalie Tony Quesada gave up two goals in the first 3:19 of his first start with the Wildcatters after being sent down by the Houston Aeros for one game. The second goal was on a power play and the third one was when Columbia was short-handed because of a penalty in the final minute of the first period.All told, Quesada allowed three goals in 13 shots and was pulled in favor of Matt Yeats after the first intermission. Cameron told Quesada in his office his getting pulled was not a reflection of his play."Sometimes you have to do that to wake your team up," Cameron said of the goalie switch.Quesada returned to Houston after the game and Miroslav Kopriva, who made his first start with Houston this season Thursday, returned to the Wildcatters. With Houston, Quesada is 0-4 and has allowed 4.62 goals per game in five games.Yeats allowed a goal on a breakaway late in the second period and stopped 12 of 13 shots.The Wildcatters have won 20 of 30 games and their 43 points in the standings are still good enough to put them atop the South Division. Columbia's victory was its 11th in 31 games. The Inferno has 26 points and is seventh in the eight-team South Division.The loss for the Wildcatters came about a week after the team pulled into sole possession of the division lead by beating second-place Florida twice in three games at home."We were up for the Florida series," Cameron said. "We had a burr in our butts and were ready to go, and tonight we weren't. We didn't have that same hunger. I could feel it around the locker room."The Wildcatters managed just eight shots in the first period and had none during their first two power plays. Texas took two shots during its third power play but Columbia scored a short-handed goal to take a 3-0 lead."I thought if we were a little more aggressive in the neutral zone, we could attack their passes, and it worked," Columbia coach Troy Mann said.Daniel Sparre scored the Wildcatters first goal about five minutes into the second period. He flipped a puck past Columbia goalie Todd Ford, whose stick had been knocked out of his hands and kicked away from him.The Wildcatters thought they had their first goal minutes earlier when Luis Tremblay slid into the goalie crease and knocked a deflected shot into the net. The horn to signal a goal sounded, but the goal was waved off after the three on-ice officials convened."That would have been a huge turnaround for us," Tremblay said.
hockeyfan Posted January 6, 2007 Report Posted January 6, 2007 Tough game, but you can't win them all. Daniel was the Sparre last night, scoring the only goal.
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