The Grand Valley State men’s club hockey team (Division II) split a weekend series against the Toledo Rockets, winning 5-2 at home Friday, Oct. 21, but lost to the rockets by the same score Saturday, Oct. 22.

“I thought real solid effort and that’s the number two team in the SE right now and they always play us very, very hard,” said GVSU coach Mike Forbes. “Obviously, both sides scored on the power play, a lot of penalties today and that makes for a hard game so I thought under the circumstance I was real happy with the effort today.”

GVSU scored two in the first period. Zach Resnick scored the first one on the power play. The second goal was scored by Mitch Claggett, even strength.

Six minutes into the second period proved to be interesting. GVSU took a penalty, having the penalty kill team out on the ice. The Lakers’ Cameron Dyde saw an opportunity and took it.

“Our line jumped out there, bounced right at the beginning of the shift,” Dyde said. “I just took a chance, made a move that I’ve practiced here and there and shot it, worked out in my favor.”

Dyde took on a Toledo defenseman one-on-one, got around him then lifted the puck over the goalie’s glove.

Toledo found the back of the net eight minutes later, making the score 3-1.

The final period proved to be chippy with GVSU scoring in the first minute of the third. Toledo tried to take it to GVSU as they settled down.

“It looked like they were starting to get some momentum when we needed to tilt the ice back our way a little bit,” Forbes said. “You try to get them to play simple hockey and sometimes they try to do too much.”

Over half of the total penalties were in the third period so the special teams got a lot of ice time.

“We gotta stay out of the box a little bit because all their goals were on the power play,” said Reede Burnett. “Offensively, we played well and we worked the puck well on the power play.”

With so many penalties, Forbes said the players need to be more discipline, which takes time.

GVSU and Toledo each scored another goal in the third to finish out the game.

“Last year we had a tight game with them and this year we made sure to break their back and put it away,” Dyde said.

Toledo took it to GVSU in the second game in Ohio on Saturday.

Unlike Friday night, GVSU did not score in the first period. But in the second period, Toledo scored two goals in a span of just five minutes.

GVSU had some issues defensively.

“We were short handed on the back side tonight,” said goaltender Spencer Craig. “We lost Lucas Little earlier in the week and had Tom Lusynski go down with an injury during the game so we pieced our defensive unit together.”

With changes happening on the fly, GVSU took a lot of penalties so special teams got a lot of ice time.

“Toledo is a very scrappy team and with our skill and speed, their game plan was to rough it up and try and get us off our game,” said captain Alex Ostrowski.

GVSU’s next home game is Nov. 11 at 9 p.m. at Georgetown Ice Center against Lindenwood.