Returning home to play a two-game series against Northern Arizona University’s Division III team the Fresno State Bulldogs beat the Ice Jacks 4-2 Friday night.

Both teams kept the game under control in the first period not allowing a goal, however NAU would put up the first tally scoring at the 6:24 mark to give the Ice Jacks the lead in the second
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Bulldog defenseman Trent Fisher wouldn’t let them keep the lead for long, scoring 44 seconds later to tie it up. With just over a minute left in the period Bulldog forward Jeremy Selan would net his first goal of the season giving Fresno the lead heading into the third.

Bulldog defenseman Travis Bybee scored at 4:01 in the third to help solidify Fresno’s lead. Both teams continued to battle until the very end, when NAU scored their second goal by forward Jack Fleming at the 17:28 mark making it a one goal game.

Fresno responded 38 seconds later with forward Russell Koch earning his first goal of the season to ensure the Bulldog’s a victory.

All goals were scored at even strength, with the Bulldogs going 0-for-5 on their power play and forcing the Ice Jacks to go 0-for-8 including two 5-on-3 situations.

Regarding his goal to get the Bulldogs on the board Fisher stated it was good to get the Bulldog’s offense started.

“You know it was pretty exciting, because they just scored the play before,” Fisher said, “I just wanted the momentum going our way not theirs.”

Selan agreed stating his goal was nice to get, but it was more important to change the flow of the game at the time.

“It was good, it was the second point in the game and it was the go ahead goal,” Selan said. “It kind of gave us some momentum towards getting on the board a little bit.”

Koch, who scored the game winner, said along with giving the Bulldogs the win his goal helped boost his confidence heading into the rest of the season.

“It felt good because last year I missed pretty much the whole year from injury, and getting this goal right now, getting me confidence to go on through the year and get more goals,” Koch said.

Koch’s line mates assisted on his goal, but their tally’s didn’t stop there with Matt Young earning two more assists and Ross Piche adding another to his total.

Though they earned the win Friday, the Bulldogs will look to continue improving on their game when they face the Ice Jackets again Saturday afternoon.

Selan said it’s all in the mentality, from the beginning the team has to be ready to play and they need to work on capitalizing on their opportunities.

“We got to have the mentality that we’re going to knock them out the first couple of shifts, because they’re going to come out swinging,” Selan said. “We’ll work on connecting in the zone, because a lot of the opportunities that we had we didn’t really connect in the zone.”

Fisher said that while the penalty kill did a good job, the team needed to work on taking fewer penalties.

“We killed a couple 5-on-3 which was really good,” Fisher said, “our penalty kill is great but we need to stay out of the box. We can’t win a game if we’re down a man the whole time.”

The Bulldogs will face off against the Ice Jackets for game 2 at 4:30 p.m. Saturday Oct. 17 at Gateway Ice Center.