After starting the season with an impressive shutout victory Friday night, the Massachusetts hockey team stumbled on Saturday as it fell to Colorado College 7-4.
The Tigers (1-1-0) scored the eventual game-winning goal on a delayed UMass (1-1-0) penalty late in the second period. Following a scramble in front of the Minuteman net, Bryce Van Horn smacked in the loose puck at four minutes, 35 seconds to push the score to 5-2 and put the game out of reach for UMass.
“Tonight’s game (there were) not a lot of positives,” Minutemen coach Greg Carvel said after the game. “We were out matched in every way. (Colorado College) played much more desperate, played with more pace and executed better. To be down as much as we were, as early as we were (we showed) a sign of a team that doesn’t know how to deal with success the night before.”
CC started the game with energy and looked much more confident compared to its start on Friday. Then, exactly one minute into the game, Branden Makara fired a wrister past Minuteman starting goalie Ryan Wischow to give the Tigers a quick 1-0 lead.
Three minutes, 49 seconds later into the period, CC defenseman Kristian Blumenschei banged in his first of the year after the initial shot never made it to Wischow, and the puck was clear a couple feet outside of the UMass crease.
The Tigers continued their torrid start less than three minutes later when Makara recorded his second of the night at 7:15 of the first period, giving CC a 3-0 advantage.
“Tonight was just completely different,” Carvel said about his team’s start. “We just weren’t ready at all.”
Following CC’s third goal, Carvel used his timeout to address his team, with the hope of resetting the attitude of his bench
“I just didn’t feel like we were competing,” Carvel said. “We weren’t moving; we were in slow motion. I mean [CC] came out ready to play and much like the night before, I thought the first five minutes of last night’s game we were really flying until we started taking some penalties. I just asked the guys to reset mentally and pick our game up and just play the right way.”
“Obviously it wasn’t the start we wanted,” senior captain Steven Iacobellis said. “(We) had a much better start last game, but those are the things we’re going to have to work on and learn from.”
Carvel also made a goaltending change during that timeout when he replaced Wischow for sophomore Nic Renyard.
“Well you’re always looking for something to shake it up, and the goalie’s got to make some saves and it just wasn’t happening. In the first seven minutes they had three goals so when your goalie’s not ready to play along with the rest of the team wasn’t ready to play, that’s what happens,” Carvel said.
The Minutemen got their first goal of the night when Iacobellis beat CC goalie Alex Leclerc after deking around a Tiger defenseman following a slick feed from junior Patrick Lee. Freshman defenseman Shane Bear was also credited with an assist on the play.
“(Lee) saw me up ice, made a really good pass, and I just tried to put the puck on net, tried to get more shots on net for myself, found a way and saw it trickle over the line,” Iacobellis said.
Iacobellis’ goal seemed to spark the rest of his teammates, however CC put an end to that after scoring once more, this time on the power play, before the end of the period to bring its lead to 4-1.
Similar to Friday night’s game, penalties were a commonplace in this one as 15 total penalties were assessed, including nine in the second period alone.
UMass brought the Tigers lead down to two after senior Ray Pigozzi riffled a shot past Leclerc at 3:03 of the second period. Sophomores Austin Plevy, and Renyard were given the assists on the play.
Van Horn scored just 1:32 later to give the Tigers a commanding 5-2 lead.
Although the Minutemen recorded two more goals from freshmen Griff Jeszka (6:12 second period) and Jonny Lazarus (12:07 third period), CC tacked on two more, including an empty netter, to hand UMass its first loss of the season.
The Minutemen were outshot 41-18 by the Tigers, including 16-6 in the final frame.
“Just sticking to the systems,” Iacobellis said when asked what he thinks needs to be worked on between games. “We do have two weeks here before our next game, so taking things slow, really refocusing and getting back to what coach wants us to do.”
Carvel added: “Hats off to [CC]. They played a really impressive game and it gives us a lot to think about over the next two weeks before we play again.”
UMass returns to action on Oct. 21 with a game against Army at Mullins Center.
Ryan can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @_RyanAmes.
