Last season, the Chargers had to watch painfully as Niagara jumped for joy after their win in the College Hockey America inaugural championship game. That celebration nawed at the Charger players and coaches for an entire year. After pounding Air Force in the semifinal game, it seemed as though the Chargers were bent on not letting that happen again.
However, after toppling the defending champion Purple Eagles, Wayne State had ideas of their own. The Warriors took it to the Chargers all night long. Meanwhile, UAH seemed to have used all of their bullets against Air Force. The end result, another year of remembering another team dancing on the Von Braun Center ice. Wayne State handed the Chargers a painful 4-1 loss in the CHA championship game.
The Chargers finished the season at 21-12-1, while the new conference champions ended the year 18-14-3.
It was another frustrating night offensively for UAH. The Chargers outshot Wayne State 36-27, including 27-16 over the final two periods. After pitching a UAH record seventh career shutout against Air Force, Charger netminder Mark Byrne was tagged for three goals. Two of the goals bearly found their way past Byrne who finished the game with 23 saves. However, on this evening, Byrne's counterpart David Guerrera shined brighter making 35 stops. For his work, Guerrera was named CHA Tournament Most Valuable Player and All-Tournament Goalie.
Four other Warriors were named to the All-Tournament team. Maxim Starchenko, Dustin Kingston, Jason Durbin and Tyler Kindle joined Guerrera on the All-Tournament team. Darren Curry and Ryan McCormack represented UAH on the team.
Wayne State drew blood first with a goal by Keith Stanich that just trickled past Byrne at the 11:12 mark in the first period. Jason Hawes tied the score for UAH with his fourth goal of the season at 13:49. Later in the period, Kingston scored what turned out to be the game-winning goal with 4:16 left.
The Chargers came out firing in the second period, but came up empty. Then in the final period, UAH outshot Wayne State 14-7. However, again Guerrera was up to the challenge. Meanwhile, the Warriors added two more goals, one on a power play by Kalle Rahm and an empty netter by Kingston, to put the game away.
While Wayne State was able to convert on one of their five power play opportunities, the Chargers went 0-5 with the man advantage.
UAH-Wayne State Box
