Box Score

ANN ARBOR, MICH. - The Niagara men's hockey team (0-1-0) opened the 2011-12 season with a tough 5-0 loss at the hands of the No. 6/9 Michigan Wolverines (1-0-0) on Tuesday night at Yost Arena.

"It doesn't feel like a 5-0 loss," head coach Dave Burkholder said. "When you look at the shot chart, I thought that we won a lot of shifts and at times made it a 50/50 game. We made a lot of young mistakes. We had far too many turnovers and some bad penalties that you just can't do at Yost Arena against a good Michigan team."

The Wolverines opened scoring just 62 seconds into the contest, when Lindsay Sparks beat starting Niagara sophomore netminder Carsen Chubak. Michigan would add to its lead 8:04 later with a shorthanded tally, off the stick of Travis Lynch .

The Purple Eagles had plenty of opportunities in the second period, but all 14 shots were stopped by Wolverine netminder Shawn Hunwick. Michigan would score three goals in a span of 4:46, including Spark's second and third goal of the night.

Senior goalie and Portage, Mich. native Chris Noonan entered the game in the third period and stopped all 11 shots that he faced.

Niagara is back in action on Saturday, Oct. 8, when it visits RIT at 7 p.m.