The pace of East Grand Rapids was too fast for the Rangers on Friday night at Patterson Ice Arena. The varsity hockey team suffered another tough loss against the Pioneers 5-0. An early penalty from Ryan Jeffreys of FHC led to the first EGR goal, giving FHC a nightmare of a start.

Penalties were a key factor in the tough loss. If the penalties were limited and kept in check, the tone of this game would have been much different.

Head coach Kevin Zaschak said his team needs to cut down on the penalties.

“We just need to be more disciplined,” Zaschak said. “And it starts with before the game, our pregame preparation has to change. Our speech in the locker room was all about mentally getting ready to play.”

After the quick goal from EGR, FHC had some shots on goal and it seemed like one was bound to find the back of the net. The Pioneers quickly turned things around, however, and scored their second goal off a faceoff. EGR stopped all momentum from FHC halfway through the second period when they scored again, this time off of three rebounds and a quick fourth shot.

Junior goalie Carl Mielock said he can help the team out on the defensive end.

“I think I could have more awareness about what is going around me and see plays developing before they happen,” Carl said. “I could also bring more energy.”

From that point on, EGR continued to have a much faster pace than the FHC, scoring two more goals in the second and third periods.

For FHC, 0-2 is not how you want to start the season, but this young team consists of only three seniors. The more that this team gets experience in this type of atmosphere, the more this will help them later in the season and in later years.

Coach Zaschak said being a young team is a factor to the rough 0-2 start.

“We have a young team, and I don’t want to use that as an excuse,” Zaschak said. “But we have to build and we have to eliminate mistakes, and find out ways as a coaching staff to put [the players] in better positions to compete.”

The Rangers square off against their archrival Forest Hills Northern-Eastern Saturday night. This will be a huge test to find out if the FHC can bounce back from two big losses to EGR and GRC.

Senior captain Charlie Brewer said the team can definitely bounce back after the 0-2 start.

“In order to bounce back we need to forget what happened in the past and focus on what’s ahead of us,” Charlie said. “We need to focus on the little things and make the little plays. If we do that I think we can bounce back.”