Detroit 13, Quinnipiac 10

Although Quinnipiax is going to have a pretty rough season, a win is a win for the Titans, and today they picked one up on the road against a hotbed team. That’s progress.

Tempo Free

From the official box score, a look at the tempo-free stats:

I was expecting a pretty quick game, so it’s a surprise to see so few possessions. I figured with Detroit’s takeaway style, they’d force enough turnovers to build up possessions, I also thought they’d cash in easily on the other end.

The latter happened, the former did not, at least in terms of making it an end-to-end game. Detroit ripped up the nets efficiently, and while Quinnipiac actually didn’t have a poor day on offense, that wasn’t enough to overcome an awful day on D.

Notes

Damie Danseglio got the start and went the distance for the Titans, thanks to A.J. Levell and Chris Kelly both being unavailable due to injury/sickness. In his first extensive collegiate action (he played four minutes against Mercer), Danseglio made seven saves while allowing ten goals.

The star of the day, however, was Joel Matthews. The Tewaaraton watchlist member put up seven points on three goals and four assists, proving that he belongs in consideration (though, coming from a low-profile team, he likely won’t be) to win the award.

Since the Titans had an offensive explosion, a few other players had good days offensively. Alex Maini had two goals and two assists, and Scott Harris put up a hat trick. Shayne Adams had two goals and Scott Drummond had one and one.

On defense, LSM Jordan Houtby and close D Jason McDonald had excellent days – including a little offensive output for each. Houtby led the way with four caused turnovers and 6 GBs, and assisted on one of Shayne Adams’s goals. McDonald caused three turnovers, picked up one GB, and scored a goal on his only shot.

Two Bobcats had good offensive days – and they probably would have been happier about it in a win. Michael Sagl had four goals and two assists, while Basil Kostaras had a goal and three assists.

As expected (forever and ever), Detroit struggled on faceoffs. They won just .370. It will be interesting to see if that liability comes back to harm them in conference play, because it certainly has at times during the non-conference schedule.

Elsewhere

Official site recap from Detroit. Official Boxscore. Official site recap from Quinnipiac. Photo gallery.

Up Next

The Titans keep up the road warrior routine, staying away from Titan Field to take on Canisius on the road in the MAAC opener. Last season, UDM beat the Golden Griffins 10-9 in overtime at home.

This time around, the game is in Buffalo, and the Titans will look to get the conference started off right, in hopes of advancing to the program’s first NCAA Tournament. Canisius has started the year 1-1 with the win coming yesterday against winless Albany.