Despite scoring four goals the Massachusetts men’s club hockey team faltered in a 5-4 overtime loss to Bryant on Friday at the Smithfield Ice Rink.
The whole game came down to a pivotal faceoff in the overtime period in which the Bulldogs won. The breakdown off of the faceoff by the Minutemen led to the game-winning goal for Bryant, coming two minutes, 47 seconds into the period.
“The overtime goal was a breakdown off of a faceoff,” UMass coach Mike Atkinson said. “[Bryant] won the draw and got the puck to the net-that is how you score goals.”
A top-performing player was Bryant’s Joshua Fattore who put up four points in the game to lead his team through the overtime victory. Of his four points were three goals, including one with the player advantage on the power-play unit.
Atkinson felt that the entirety of the game was played very close with both teams coming up with big performances on both the offensive and defensive ends of the ice.
“The whole game on Friday was very back and forth,” Atkinson said. “Both teams got some good breaks and some tough ones.”
Despite the tough loss, UMass showed a strong performance on offense and defense. Its offense was spread across the ice and came from many different contributors including Danny Arnao, Craig Charest, Scott Cook and Kevin Christie who each tallied one goal in the game.
With the goal on Friday, Cook has now tallied five points in his last four game as well as three goals in the past two games. The six foot forward has recorded seven points so far this season.
After scoring a goal Friday, Arnao put up his fourth point in the past three games after scoring a goal and an assist last weekend against Sacred Heart. Arnao has registered eight points on the season with three goals and five assists.
Through four games played in net, goaltender Dan O’Quinn of the Minutemen has now allowed nine goals for a goals-against average of 2.38 and a .81 save percentage.
This Friday, UMass will travel to Hartford, Conn., to take on the Connecticut on before heading back to Amherst for a rematch against the Bulldogs.
“In order to beat UConn we will need to be much better in all areas,” Atkinson said. “We need to get back to doing what we do well.”
The Huskies have slumped a little so fat this season through their first 10 games winning four thus far. Despite that the Minutemen must still bring their best performance to beat UConn.
Bryant played the Huskies a day after beating UMass and will play the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Friday before its rematch of the Minutemen who will look to refine their game.
“We got away from that this weekend and it showed,” Atkinson said. “UConn will be a great team and we will need to bring out a game in order to take a W from them.”
Robert Hanlon can be reached at [email protected].
