A night after yielding three goals in the final 64 seconds and settling for a 5-5 tie against Iona, Quinnipiac was on a mission Saturday night at the Northford Ice Pavilion.<\/p>\n
The two-time defending MAAC regular-season champs wanted to prove that its season opener was nothing more than a fluke and that Iona’s four-goal third period rally was the exception and not the norm.<\/p>\n
So, with a night to think about things, Quinnipiac reverted back to its old form in the back end of the home-and-home series with the Gaels. Thanks to a goal and an assist from senior left wing Chris Cerrella and 18 saves from freshman goaltender Justin Eddy, the Braves were able to record a 3-1 win for their first victory of the season.<\/p>\n
“We were still down a bit after last night’s game,” Cerrella said. “We had a lot to prove tonight after losing a 5-1 lead late in the third period last night.”<\/p>\n
Said Braves coach Rand Pecknold: “This was a big win for us. Obviously we had a huge letdown last night, but tonight we reloaded. We just played better defensively starting from the back out, and Justin Eddy was fantastic in his first start.”<\/p>\n
Quinnipiac (1-0-1, 1-0-1 MAAC) was able to distance itself from Iona with a strong second period in which it scored a pair of goals. After Gaels’ winger Chad Nordhagen tallied 4:26 into the period to knot the game at 1, freshman Ryan Morton netted his first collegiate goal at the 12:08 mark to give the Braves the lead for good. The rookie right winger worked his way into the right faceoff circle from behind the Iona cage and backhanded a shot through the pads of Mike Fraser for a 2-1 advantage.<\/p>\n
Junior center Ryan Olson would then provide some insurance just five minutes later with the Braves’ second power-play goal of the night. Cerrella drew two defenders to him along the right wing boards before delivering a cross ice pass right onto the tape of Olson at the left circle, who tucked a shot under the left shoulder of Fraser to make it 3-1.<\/p>\n
From there, Eddy made the lead stand up with a host of sparkling saves. Among the best were a pair of stops on breakaways by all-MAAC forward Ryan Carter with the Braves clinging to a one-goal advantage midway through the second period.<\/p>\n
“I was really focused out there,” Eddy said. “It’s kind of hard not to be with tonight being the first game and everyone watching. Our D-guys kept telling me to play the simple game and not to worry about the clock or anything else.”<\/p>\n
Added Cerrella: “Justin is going to be a great goalie in this league and he’s just what J.C [Wells, the Braves starting goaltender] needs, that’s some pressure from a new guy. They’re going to push each other. It’s good to have two quality starting goalies in this league.”<\/p>\n
Cerrella ignited the Braves offense with a power-play goal late in the first period. The North Massepequa, N.Y., native played give-and-go with teammate Matt Erhart in the high slot before rifling a shot past Iona’s Mike Fraser for a 1-0 lead at the 19 minute mark.<\/p>\n
Nordhagen would go on to net the equalizer for Iona early in the second frame, but Quinnipiac settled down from there and rode its defense and goaltending to a two-goal win.<\/p>\n
“We’re really trying to focus on becoming a better defensive hockey team,” Pecknold said. “That’s one of our objectives for the year. Last night wasn’t indicative of it, however. Offensively, we know that we’re going to score goals — we did it last year and we’re going to do it again this year — but we’re really focusing on our defense.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A night after yielding three goals in the final 64 seconds and settling for a 5-5 tie against Iona, Quinnipiac was on a mission Saturday night at the Northford Ice Pavilion. The two-time defending MAAC regular-season champs wanted to prove that its season opener was nothing more than a fluke and that Iona’s four-goal third […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22374,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1034"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1034"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1034\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1034"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=1034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}