Everyone knew Dartmouth had firepower. But not a lot of people saw it in the first half of the season. Last week the Big Green scored six goals in taking the Ledyard Bank Classic and people thought that the Big Green were back. Take notice, the Big Green are back — with firepower.
The Big Green got a hat trick from Eric Przepiorka and pounded Rensselaer, 9-1, to open up 2005 in style.
“The puck hasn’t found the back of the net for us on a regular basis, but we generated good offense,” said Big Green head coach Bob Gaudet. “It’s nice to see the guys be rewarded for their effort. A lot of games they haven’t been.”
The Engineers came out with a head of steam with several chances, but were unable to put on past Sean Samuel. From there, the tide shifted to the Big Green’s favor.
Lee Stempniak and John Ostapyk scored in the first period to give the Big Green the 2-0 lead. In the second the Big Green built that lead to 4-0 when Przepiorka and Ben Lovejoy scored, with Przepiorka chasing Engineer goalie Jordan Alford. Matt McNeely scored on the power play for the Engineers to make it 4-1 after two periods of play.
In the third the floodgates opened for the Big Green. Garrett Overlock scored on the power play 1:03 into the third period and Przepiorka followed up 29 seconds later with his second of the game.
Przepiorka got his hat-trick goal five minutes into the third period and that chased Andrew Martin and brought back in Alford. It didn’t help much as Tanner Glass scored on the power play and then Chris Snizek finished the scoring for the fifth Big Green goal of the third period.
“It was a great effort, it was one of those games where the puck went in,” said Gaudet. “Our kids played hard from start to finish. People looked at our record and said this and that, but we’ve only played one bad period of hockey all year. I can’t say that about any other team that I have coached.”
The Big Green (6-6-2, 4-4-0 ECACHL) will travel to Union on Saturday while the Engineers (9-11-2, 2-6-1 ECACHL) will look to rebound against Vermont at home.
