Illini score against the Eagles

October 22, 2003 - This coming Friday and Saturday nights, October 24th and 25th, the Eagles of Eastern Michigan University will land in Champaign/Urbana to take on the Illini Hockey club. The Eagles season started out well with two exhibition wins over Michigan Sate and Central Michigan, but since then they have been putting up goose eggs in the win column and are now skating in to the big pond with 0-4 record for the regular season and CSCHL games. Eastern's last lost came in an overtime game against another league opponent, Michigan-Dearborn, and they would definitely like to turn things around as they face the 5-0-1 Illini team. The Orange and Blue skaters have other plans in mind though as they try to regroup from the shaky start of league play last weekend in Ames, and want to come out strong and take control of these games early, and hopefully taking away all 8 points that the games hold. With over half of their top ten scorers from last season gone, other Eagle players will be stepping up to fill the voids. Two of these returning players that the Illini defense will need to keep an eye on are Ryan Thompson, EMU's MVP and Top Scorer last season, and sophomore Justin Shaw who is putting up some numbers again this season. Returning in net for the Eagles again this year are Jake Pruss and Tom Gresham, who are joined by new-comer Erik Williams. Last season the two returning goalies backed up Sam "the Eagle" Horton, and had an average of just under 4 goals against per game. The Eagles this season are still allowing an average of 4 goals per game and the Illini would like to capitalize on that with strong offensive play from their power forwards, and and at the same time shutting Eastern down in the zone with hard play from the aggressive defense. Both games start at 7:00 pm at the University of Illinois Ice Arena in Champaign, tickets are still available and can be purchased at the door before each game.