Neumann took its physical style of hockey into The Aud last Friday night against a Utica team that historically has looked forward to mixing it up in the corners. But a more experienced group of Knights gave some lessons to the a much younger Utica team and built a 3-1 lead by early in the third period.
” Neumann had a good game plan,” said Utica coach Gary Heenan. “They came in as a veteran team, intimidated our young team, and it took us a couple of periods to start playing. That was disappointing in our own building. In the third period we came alive and the guys we call upon to score goals scored goals. It was an exciting finish.”
Leading scorer Tim Coffman led the charge back for the Pioneers, scoring a shorthanded goal and adding two assists in the third period to knot the game 4-4 with five minutes left in the game. But freshman Ryan Dreger scored the game winner for Neumann with 2:08 left in the contest to give the Knights a 5-4 victory.
Neumann then travelled south to take on Manhattanville Saturday night and jumped on the Valiants from the opening bell. The Knights outshot Manhattanville 16-5 in the first period, scoring three times in the first eleven minutes of the game, and then rolled to a 5-1 victory.
” We got thumped,” said Manhattanville coach Keith Levinthal. “I actually thought we were a really good team before that game. We had played very well. We got taken out to the woodshed. I don’t know what kind of team we have any more. We got flat out outworked. It was men versus boys and we were the boys.”
Neumann got beat by a rested Hobart team a week ago Saturday and were determined to not let Manhattanville do the same this week. But the Valiants hadn’t played in two weeks and the extended period without a game perhaps worked against Manhattanville in this game.
” I don’t want to take away from what Neumann did to win the game but two week breaks are a tough thing to do,” said Levinthal. “We practiced so darn much we weren’t sharp. That is about as bad of an effort in our rink in a long time.”
With a sense of desperation, Manhattanville pulled goaltender Steve Parry with just under four minutes remaining in the game. Parry had entered the game with about six minutes left in relief of starting goaltender Pierre-Olivier Lemieux.
” We were down three goals and weren’t generating a whole lot of offense,” said Levinthal. “When you are down to desperate measures it is never good.”
The other big league contest last weekend was Elmira visiting Hobart. These two teams are very evenly matched and it was another close contest this time around. Hobart ruled the first period storming out to a 3-0 lead.
But Elmira came roaring out of the locker room in the second scoring a trio of goals in the first 2:46 of the period to tie the game. Hobart stemmed the bleeding with a goal at the 3:00 mark and then added another midway through the period when Matthew Wallace finished off his hat trick.
The Soaring Eagles weren’t done though, and tied the game again at 5-5 when they scored two power play goals 21 seconds apart midway through the third period. Hobart again answered quickly as Patrick Moriarty scored the game winner at 17:29 to give the Statesmen the 6-5 victory.
” At this point in the season, we are taking way too many penalties,” said Elmira coach Aaron Saul. “The teams we are playing, if you give them too many opportunities they are going to score. A little frustrating for us. It isn’t that the guys aren’t working hard or playing well, it is just that we were undisciplined with some calls and that is preventing us from winning games.”
It was a wild weekend of league games in the ECAC West.
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