The Rensselaer Engineers and freshman goaltender Nathan Marsters thrilled the home crowd in their season opener with a 3-0 win over the Army Black Knights on Saturday. Marsters made 15 saves and earned his first collegiate shutout.
“It was great to get the shutout, but I didn’t have to do much work, my defense was there,” said Marsters. “I’m overwhelmed. First game at home and the defense made it easy for me.”
“I thought he played an excellent game,” said Rensselaer head coach Dan Fridgen. “He did a lot of good things out there. He had some frustrated forwards, but we stuck with it. I thought he came up with some great saves for us early and he certainly earned that shutout.”
The Engineers were peppering Black Knight goaltender Scott Hamilton with shots in the first two periods. In the first period, the Engineers had 12 shots and Hamilton turned them all away. The Engineers let off 22 shots in the second period and Hamilton stopped all but one.
The one he didn’t stop was sophomore (junior academically) forward Eric Cavosie’s first collegiate goal. Playing on a line with his brother, sophomore Marc, the two came down on a two-on-two situation. Marc dished the puck to Eric, who made one deke and slid it on the backhand past the stick of Hamilton.
“It was real special,” Eric said about his first goal. “It’s the first time I’m playing with my brother in a long time and he just gave me the pass. It’s real great playing with him and it’s unreal. I didn’t have a lot of time to think, I was just hoping I didn’t mess up too much.”
“The two defensemen committed and I just sent it over to Eric,” said Marc. “I don’t think he had a monkey on his shoulder on anything, he just needed his chances and he hasn’t really had them. There’s not much more you can ask for.”
“That was a real nice play,” said Fridgen about the goal. “I didn’t realize that was Eric’s first goal. He’s worked hard and it’s paid off.”
The Engineers made it 2-0 two minutes into the third period when Carson Butterwick deflected a point shot from his stomach by Jim Vickers past Hamilton.
The Engineers sealed it when Nolan Graham sent Matt Murley in on the breakaway and Murley deked out Hamilton and slid it under him on the backhand for the third Engineer goal and the 3-0 victory.
“I thought we came out a little flat, I don’t know what it was,” said Fridgen. “I knew we could play a lot better than we showed in that first period. I don’t know if it was jitters or what, but I don’t want to make excuses. We did a lot of the little things right.”
The Engineers (2-1-0, 0-0-0 ECAC) will open their ECAC season next weekend when they travel to Union. The Black Knights (0-4-0, 0-2-0 MAAC) will next play at Bentley in a MAAC contest on Nov. 10.
