Ohio State loses to Western Michigan, 6-2, in Shillelagh Tournament

Things keep looking worse and worse for Ohio State hockey. After at least getting a split with conference rival Michigan State last weekend, the Buckeyes were clubbed into submission by Western Michigan, 6-2, in South Bend this afternoon.

Western Michigan came into the game at 3-8-1 overall, a worse mark than OSU's 4-7-1 record, but still beat the Buckeyes fairly soundly with three unanswered goals in the third period.

Western Michigan opened the scoring less than 4 minutes into the contest on a goal by J.T. Osborn and added another just over 16 minutes into the opening frame on a tally by the hilariously named Frederik Tiffels.

Anthony Greco narrowed the WMU lead to 2-1 on an unassisted goal in the second, but WMU scored again on Michael Rebry's goal, just 54 seconds after Greco's. Chad Niddery got the deficit back down to 1 on a goal seven minutes later, but the score would stay at 3-2 going into the third.

Kenny Morrison scored to make it 4-2 and then Tiffels put up two more to get a hat trick for Western Michigan and make it into a laugher.

Matt Tomkins again got the start for OSU, and it's fairly safe to say he won't be one of the stars of the week again after giving up 5 goals on 35 shots, for a .857 save percentage. Christian Frey could realistically come back to start tomorrow in the consolation game versus the loser of Notre Dame vs. Union.

All in all, things keep looking worse for the Buckeyes heading into Big Ten conference season. With major players (relatively) like Minnesota and Michigan as well as a surprisingly decent Penn State team on the schedule, a last place conference finish is not out of the realm of possibility for the Buckeyes. It's not likely, but not impossible.

If they keep playing like this, though, things won't be looking good any time soon.