The Massachusetts men’s club hockey team lost 5-3 to Northeastern on Sunday afternoon. After a tough first period, the Minutemen (6-4-1) couldn’t return for the win.
Northeastern (6-5) scored at 14:37 in the first period, Maxim Mochalov and Nicholas Viens assisted William Cannella to deliver a slap shot into the goal. Shortly after, the Huskies scored at 12:28 with a quick shot into goal by captain Alexander Tilgner to widen the gap.
The Minutemen were firing tough shots throughout, but the Huskies were unrelenting. Northeastern goaltender Steve Jensen dropped into a split to prevent a UMass goal during the first period.
Northeastern had 36 shots on goal compared to the Minutemen’s 28 shots.
“I thought that was one of the worst games we played,” head coach Mike DeFazio said. “Definitely the worst first period. I don’t think we’ve been out shot 20 to five in a long time, so we dug ourselves too big of a hole in the first period. After that it was pretty even, but against a team like that you can’t go down 3-1 in the first and not get anything going and expect to win. So just a slow start killed us.”
The Minutemen responded to Northeastern by Ellis Vish snapping the puck into the goal to answer the goals scored by Northeastern earlier in the period. The celebration didn’t last long due to a hard slap shot by Northeastern forward Leo Byers. The UMass goaltender, Ryan Dailida, was unable to stop the telegraphed shot. The Huskies goal rounded out the first frame 3-1 Northeastern.
The Minutemen started the second period strong, with a goal only 25 seconds in by Mitchell Rickert, narrowing the gap to 3-2 Northeastern.
Tensions were running high between the closely matched teams throughout the game, resulting in 13 penalties. There were six penalties in the second period alone, one of which was a major penalty on the Huskies after cross-checking and shoving one of the Minutemen.
After continuous battering between teams and alternating possession of the puck, Northeastern scored once more with a high shot into the net. Shortly thereafter, Will Trischitta scored for UMass with a slap shot, soaring into the net, and adjusting the score to 4-3 Northeastern to end the second frame.
The Huskies solidified their win by scoring with 6:31 left in the last frame to make the final score 5-3 Northeastern.
“We just need to put it together for a full 60 minutes,” Liam Scanlon said. “In the first period we looked pretty sloppy, picked it up a little bit towards the second and third.” He continued, “We need to capitalize on our opportunities and work hard the whole time.”
The Minutemen look to refine their game before they face Keene State on Thursday, Nov 16.
“Tomorrow we have another practice…we’ll probably go over film before or after practice, watch this game a little bit, understand what mistakes did happen so we can clean them up because we have another big game Thursday night,” DeFazio said.
Rylee Davis can be reached at [email protected].
