The Massachusetts men’s club hockey team won in dominating fashion Saturday night at Mullins Center with a 7-2 rout of Keene State.
The Minutemen (5-4) controlled the pace of play from the puck drop to the final buzzer. Freshman defenseman Brett Mason led the way with two goals and an assist, but it was an overall team effort that led UMass to the dominating win, according to coach Jamie Magarian.
“We’re trying to run four forward lines as evenly as we can.” Magarian said. “Throughout the game, people started coming around and we got everybody contributing, which was positive for the team.”
Goaltender Luke Lepine was a spectator for much of the night, but made some timely saves to keep momentum going as he picked up his second win of the year.
The Minutemen came out firing and spent the first period camped out in the Keene State zone. Freshman forward Casey Litwack opened the scoring 10 minutes, four seconds into the first period off a feed from Mason. Just 2:33 later, it was Litwack feeding Mason as UMass took a 2-0 lead.
In the second period, goals by Mark Filder, Harris Stone and Scott Campbell increased the Minutemen’s lead to 5-0 and chased Keene State starting goaltender Dylan Strogen from the game. Michael Defazio opened the scoring in the third, using a tic-tac breakout play to put him in front of the net all alone. Later in the period, Mason added his second goal of the game to round out the scoring for UMass.
The Minutemen were faster and more physical throughout the night, and it showed as they won puck battles and were the more active team in the corners. The defense smothered the Keene State attack with an aggressive forecheck that saw forwards attacking defensemen far up the ice. This disrupted the Owls breakout, as they were rarely clean out of their own zone.
UMass also killed 6-of-7 penalties, an area of progress the team continues to work on each week.
“A couple of weeks ago our penalty kill fell apart, so for the last couple of games we’ve been concentrating on that,” Magarian said. He also cited communication, discipline, and on-ice positioning as reasons for the shorthanded success. The PK unit even pitched in offensively after a spectacular individual effort from defenseman Brian Collins setup Stone point blank for a shorthanded goal.
The victory capped off an undefeated weekend for the Minutemen, as they took to the road Friday night and beat Bryant University by a score of 2-1. Drew McLeman was the winning goaltender in the low-scoring affair as he improved his season record to 3-1.
Ross Gienieczko can be reached at [email protected].
