On Saturday night, the Boston College men’s hockey team hosted the second night of a weekend series against local rival UMass. BC won their game on Friday night, 3-1, in Amherst. Looking for a series sweep, the Eagles also were bringing back top forward Oscar Hemming after he was out with an injury.
Boston College picked up right where they left off the previous night. Just under three minutes into the game, BC’s Casey Mutryn slipped a puck by UMass goalie Ethan Eskit for an early 1-0 lead. But from there the play was more even and BC’s offense struggled to generate shots against the rigid Minuteman defense. Then on the other side, UMass went on a long stretch of offensive zone time that was tiring out the Eagles defense. Louka Cloutier kept his team in it with a few clutch saves, but the defense was being pushed to the brink. Eventually BC went on the powerplay and relieved the pressure. They didn’t score on it and instead rode their 1-0 lead into the first intermission.
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The first few minutes of the second period were chaos. Just before the break, Teddy Stiga drew an impressive hooking penalty by getting a defender off balance and blowing right by him. Kristian Kostadinski was able to convert on the following powerplay to give BC a 2-0 lead. But then within another two minutes, Jack Musa scored for UMass and Kostadinski scored again for BC. BC’s lead was 3-1 and then a slew of penalties threatened to make the game even more chaotic. Will Vote even got a penalty shot after a UMass player interfered with a loose stick on the ice, but nothing converted until finally Oscar Hemming broke free and beat Eskit on his left side. Boston College took that 4-1 lead into the third period.
UMass was pretty depleted after that. They were generally keeping the Eagles offense contained, but made a few crucial mistakes that let the small lead balloon into a big lead. BC had a fair share of penalties and mistakes themselves, but a strong penalty kill staved off most of UMass’s scoring chances.
Boston College started playing with less urgency and it showed. The Eagles weren’t generating much offensive zone time and the Minutemen took advantage by converting turnovers into a few quality possessions. UMass’s Melvin Novotny buried a shot right in front of Cloutier to narrow BC’s lead to 4-2. With ten minutes still remaining in regulation, the game was not over.
There were another few close calls and shaky rebounds off Cloutier as the game clock wound down, but BC still held a two goal lead heading into the final few minutes. From there, the Eagles essentially played a game of keep away, forcing UMass to be aggressive and overcommit. Jake Sondreal got grabbed by UMass’s Larry Keenan in front of Eskit, resulting in a BC powerplay that would last the entire final two minutes. Boston College rode that into an eventual 4-2 victory and sweep of their in-state rival.
Boston College will next travel up to Orono to face off against Maine in a two-game series next weekend.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: Sports.yahoo.com
