A pair of victories last weekend in College Hockey Mid-America (CHMA) league games, has the Kent State University Golden Flashes on the cusp of qualifying for the post season CHMA playoffs.

     After returning home from Erie, Pennsylvania with a 5-4 victory last Friday night, the Golden Flashes skated past West Virginia University 5-2 on Saturday night in Kent.

     “That helped a ton and puts us in a great position for the playoffs,” acknowledged Kent State Head Coach, Zack Nowak.

     Zach Zwierecki (3G,1A), Jonathan Gabriel (2G, 1A), Hunter Hillebrecht (1G, 2A) and Tommy Kilway (1G,1A) each earned multiple points during the weekend triumphs.

     Nowak noted the play of Koby Greenberg during the weekend as well, stating, “I’ve been impressed with the effort by Koby. That is a kid that has been working really hard. He has a lot of skill and is one of the fastest, hardest working guys on the ice. He works really hard when he has it going.”

      “We came out, were up two to nothing, and seemed like we took our foot off the gas,” observed Nowak while reviewing the Mercyhurst contest Friday evening. “We played pretty good hockey to close it out.”

      Nowak has noticed a pattern of his team struggling on Friday nights noting, “For some reason we have been really struggling with our Friday games, lately. We call it our ‘Friday Funk’ and we need to get out of that.”

      The team’s effort was, according to Nowak, “great” on Saturday night against the Mountaineers.

      “West Virginia is a really hardworking team. It was a fun game to be a part of and our guys worked through some adversity, and we were happy with that result.”

      First year goaltender Nick Beck stopped 67 of the 73 shots faced in the two games.

      Kent is idle this weekend and will close out their regular season the following weekend.

     The Golden Flashes will host Mercyhurst on February 11th and travel to Pittsburgh to face off against Duquesne on Saturday the 12th.

      There are a variety of scenarios in which the Golden Flashes can clinch their spot in the playoffs, and they could find themselves in the fourth of fifth playoff spot. Six teams qualify for CHMA post-season play.

     “If we bring the effort we need to bring consistently and bring it through the whole game and, I know it is so cliché, but if the effort is there the whole time, I think we will be alright,” assessed Nowak.