By Dominic Renzetti

Staff Reporter

The Eastern hockey club, coming off a two loss weekend against St. Louis, will be back at it again this weekend, taking on Southern Illinois-Edwardsville at 6:30 p.m. Friday and 8:45 a.m. Saturday at the East Alton Ice Arena in East Alton.

After last weekend’s pair of losses, the team took it back to the drawing board and back to basics.

“Well, we have gone back to the basics and have been working a lot on fundamental drills to get our minds back in the game,” Hank Capouch, a junior physical education major and defenseman on the team, said. “Also, we have really been working on neutral zone coverage, and defensive zone breakout, because the weekend showed that we needed to work on that aspect of our game.”

Eastern and Southern Illinois-Edwardsville, both being from the state of Illinois, and both competing in the Ohio Valley Conference in a number of other sports, are traditionally rivals, and it’s no different in club hockey.

“Yeah, I’d say there is a little bit of heated blood between the two of us,” Steven Kriegshauser, a junior sports management major and defenseman on the team said. “We have played them in years past, and have all been close games, also, the distance isn’t to far from each other so that makes it a little more special.”

Kriegshauser said there is also a bit of familiarity between some of the players, which only increases the rivalry.

“There are a few guys on their team that a few of our guys know pretty well,” he said. “That always makes it fun when you play against kids that you have played with on other teams, and always makes it more memorable when you beat them, which hopefully we will.”

Southern Illinois-Edwardsville has yet to lose this season, taking down Wheaton College, and most recently beating St. Louis.

However, Capouch said Southern Illinois-Edwardsville beating St. Louis doesn’t mean as much as it may seem.

“We know that SIUE beat SLU by a score of 9-4 on (Sept. 23),” Capouch said. “It had to of been a tough game for SLU, after playing us on Friday and Saturday. They had to of been tired, and they definitely were banged up.”

Capouch said that a number of St. Louis players were injured after the series with Eastern, so Southern Illinois-Edwardsville didn’t see the same team as Eastern.

“But, that being said, we know that they are still a strong team who still beat a team that we lost to,” Capouch said. “We are expecting them to come out flying, they have only played that one game all season, and are ready to get the season started.”

Dominic Renzetti can be reached at 581-2812 or dcrenzetti@eiu.edu.