The Clemson club ice hockey team swept the Alabama-Huntsville Chargers in dominant fashion this weekend, 8-0 and 16-2, in the Tigers’ first series of the season. With the two wins, the Tigers are currently ranked No. 4 in the College Hockey South DII North standings with a record of 2-0-0.
In an impressive display of their renewed offensive prowess, the Tigers outscored the Chargers 24-2 across both games, and three players posted a hat trick: Ethan Callahan, Cade Heinold and Santiago Diaz. However, the result was clearly a culmination of the entire team’s performance, as every rostered player but one scored at least one point this weekend, and goalie Parker Dietz stopped 19 out of 19 shots in the first shutout of his Clemson career.
Heinold, the team’s elected captain, and Diaz lead the team with five points each (3-2). Additionally, four Tigers collected four points, three collected three points, four collected two points and seven players collected one point.
Callahan led the scoring for Clemson in Saturday’s 8-0 win, netting three of the eight total goals. Defensemen Cameron Iacobelli and Matthew Ionta and forwards Sully Kopf and Alex Wallace all recorded two points each in the contest.
The following day, the Tigers scored as many goals in the first period as they did in three the day before. Christian Romeo, Troy Gouveia, Callahan, Heinold, Kopf and Will Van Sicklin all found the back of the net in the opening 20 minutes, and Diaz found it twice.
Kopf, Heinold, and Colby Carey added three more goals in the middle frame, bringing the score to 11-0 at the end of the second.
The Chargers netted their first of the weekend halfway through the third, courtesy of Cam Buhler, but Patrick O’Brien and Will Ralsten quickly responded with power-play goals one minute apart to increase Clemson’s lead to 13-1.
Heinold completed his hat trick with 4:31 on the clock, and Huntsville responded a minute later with its second and final goal. But the Tigers weren’t finished; team president Conor Peterson added a goal of his own with 2:33 left, and Diaz tallied his third goal, shorthanded, with 11 seconds remaining.
“(I thought) we played well,” Diaz told The Tiger after Sunday’s game. “The other team fought hard, but we were just a step above them.”
In his first time on the ice since his invite to the Greenville Swamp Rabbits’ training camp in the fall, the forward collected one assist on Saturday, which he deemed lackluster compared to what he knows he’s capable of. So, Diaz walked into the rink on Sunday morning, switched back to his number from last season, 88 — because 18 “clearly wasn’t working” — and skated on the ice with a vengeance.
Donning 88 once again, Diaz collected four points, three goals and an assist on Sunday.
“Needed to get on the score sheet,” he said. “Yesterday, I only had one assist, so it felt good to put three by him today.”
“I should add a lot more, you know, a lot more where that came from,” he added, smiling. “Cade (Heinold) feeds me. Ronan (Bryant) feeds me. So they make it really easy out there.”
Diaz also noted the importance of starting the season with two wins, especially wins of such a wide margin. In recent years, momentum has proven to be an essential force for this team’s success.
“It’s going to help a lot,” Diaz said. “We had a long offseason, so to start on a weekend like that, it’s great to get the engines going. It’ll help us going into the next (few) weeks, where we have two or three games every weekend. We definitely needed that to build up.”
When asked what he’s looking forward to for next weekend’s series against Middle Tennessee State Blue Raiders — who lead the CHS DII standings with a record of 16-1-1 — Diaz replied, “Starting the season undefeated. I don’t think that there’s any team that has more skill than us, so as long as we play hard, we’ll show that.”
The Tigers will look to keep their undefeated streak as they travel to Clarksville, Tennessee, next weekend to take on the Middle Tennessee Blue Raiders.
