Mistakes cost the Illinois hockey team a sweep against Aurora University at home this weekend. Illinois won on Friday 4-2, but faltered Saturday, losing 7-4.

Illinois (10-5-0-0) got out to a slow start Friday, scoring a power-play goal in the first period. Illinois and Aurora had six shot attempts each in the first. Head coach Nick Fabbrini thought it was one of the team’s worst periods of the year.

“Complacency was a big issue in the first,” Fabbrini said. “We just weren’t skating, making lazy plays, (making) bad decisions with the puck, (making) bad decisions without the puck, and I came in and made it pretty clear after the first 20 (minutes), that was not going to be acceptable.”

Illinois controlled the tempo in the second period, scoring two goals on 14 shot attempts, while Aurora scored one goal on seven attempts. Despite only three shot attempts in the third, Illinois was able to hold on to the lead and seal the victory.

After being swept by Lindenwood last week, Friday’s win gave the Illini a morale boost.

“It was a nice bounce-back weekend for us because we had a rough go at Lindenwood,” junior John Olen said. “It was definitely a good way to turn around after a three-game losing streak there.”

Illinois’ win was short lived as Saturday’s game went much differently. After allowing three goals in the first period, Fabbrini pulled goaltender Joe Olen and put in Zev Grumet-Morris.

Grumet-Morris’ spark was extinguished quickly. After making a few saves, he gave up two goals and Aurora took a 5-0 lead late in the second.

Illinois answered back when senior Kyle Varzino and John Olen scored each in a 43 second span.

That momentum carried over briefly into the third period when a Joseph Ritondale goal cut the lead to 5-3. However, Illinois was unable to hold off Aurora’s attack and an empty-netter with a minute left ended the Illini’s hopes of a comeback.

The Illini accounted for 11 penalties on Saturday, compared to five penalties on Friday. Fabbrini thought some of the extra penalties contributed to the loss Saturday night.

“We may have lost our composure a little bit, took a couple stupid penalties, offensive zone stick penalties. We had four or five of them today and those are just not acceptable,” Fabbrini said. “Tripping a guy 200 feet from our net, there’s not a whole lot of upside in that.”

Coming off Saturday’s loss, Fabbrini believes adjusting ice time will send a message to his players to get rid of committing unnecessary penalties.

“I need to do a better job of taking away guys’ ice time,” Fabbrini said. “That really seems to be the only thing that changes decision making around here is lack of playing time. Sometimes it’s our best players that are taking these penalties, guys that we need on the ice to score goals so it really kind of puts us in a tough spot.”

The next series for Illinois will be at the Big Pond against Iowa State. Forward Jacob Matysiak doesn’t want to see his team split another series at home.

“We’re too good of a team to win a game and then lose a game the next night,” Matysiak said.

Matt can be reached at [email protected] and on Twitter @MattGertsmeier.