Saints Fall to Mass.-Lowell
_Photos/St._Lawrence/Alex_Petizian.gif?max_width=360)
| Final | 1 | 2 | 3 | Final |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mass.-Lowell (1-0) | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 |
| St. Lawrence (0-1) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Scoring Summary | |
|---|---|
| 1st - 07:46 | PP - Edwards, Maury (Mass.-Lowell) |
| 2nd - 05:30 | Holmstrom, Ben (Mass.-Lowell) |
| 3rd - 19:19 | EN - Falite, Kory (Mass.-Lowell) |
| Mass.-Lowell | St. Lawrence |
|---|---|
|
G:
3 Players (#7, #12, #21 - 1)
A: Falite, Kory - 2 Sh: Falite, Kory - 7 Sv: Hutton, Carter - 24 |
G:
N/A
A: N/A Sh: Mark Armstrong - 5 Sv: Alex Petizian - 19 |
| TEAM STATISTICS | Mass.-Lowell | St. Lawrence |
|---|---|---|
| Power Plays | 1 for 6 | 0 for 3 |
| Shorthanded Goals | 0 | 0 |
| Penalties (min) | 3 (6) | 6 (12) |
| Shots on Goal | 22 | 24 |
| Face Offs Won | 29 | 26 |
OMAHA, NE -- Senior Kory Falite set up the game's first two
goals and scored an empty-netter and senior goaltender Carter
Hutton posted a 24-save shutout as highly-regarded UMass.-Lowell
shut out St. Lawrence 3-0 in game one of the Icebreaker Tournament
at the Qwest Center in Omaha, NE Friday evening.
Host Nebraska-Omaha played Army in game two of the tournament with
the winner of that game meeting UML in the 8:00 (ET) championship
game Saturday night. The Saints will play the second game loser in
the 5:00 p.m. consolation game. It was the first time in three
appearances in the Icebreaker that the Saints have failed to
advance to the championship game.
The Riverhawks went into Friday's game ranked 11th nationally in the pre-season polls and ranked second in the Hockey East pre-season listing. Lowell, which finished last season strong with a 12-5-2 record from mid-January on, had ten seniors in its opening night lineup.
"Lowell has an excellent team and it was a good test for us to open the season," said Saint coach Joe Marsh. "I thought we did a pretty good job of skating with them five-on-five and I am pleased with the effort the guys put in. We do, obviously, have a long way to go, particularly in terms of finishing off our scoring chances, but I saw a lot more positives out there tonight than negatives."
The Saints turned in a solid first period and had a territorial edge, but the Riverhawks scored the period's only goal, converting on a power play 7:46 into the game. Junior defenseman Maury Edwards scored the goal when he picked up a loose puck which had gotten tangled up in the skates of a Saint defenseman and scored from point blank range, tucking the puck under Alex Petizian's outstretched pads.
SLU had several good scoring chances in the first and outshot UML 10-6. Brandon Bollig had perhaps the best chance of the period in the waning minutes as his shot got behind Riverhawk goalie Carter Hutton, but Hutton was able to reach back and cover the puck just before it crossed the goal line.
UML took a 2-0 lead 5:30 into the second period, finishing off a two-on-one rush with a shot by Ben Holmstrom which snuck over the shoulder of a challenging Petizian and just under the crossbar. Holmstrom came off the bench on a line change and was all alone in front of Petizian. Falite again set up the play with a drop pass on the two-on-one with defenseman Jeremy Dehner starting the play with a pass in the neutral zone.
The Saints generated some chances in the third period, but couldn't crack the scoreboard.
Max Mobley had a shot kick off a defenseman's skate right in front of an empty net with Hutton trapped behind his own goal midway through the final period and Mike McKenzie was tied up on a rebound try with Hutton moving the wrong way with under five minutes to go. Bobby Torney clanked one off the post with 3:50 to go in what was the final good scoring chance of the game for the Saints.
"I thought our younger guys did a pretty good job. There wasn't a ton of game experience out there on defense beyond Jeff Caister and Derek Keller, but Bobby Torney, Matt Raley, George Hughes and Pete Child played pretty well. We'll probably change things up a bit on Saturday to get some more guys into the lineup, but we definitely want to work toward coming out of the weekend with a split."
Falite wrapped things up with an empty net goal from outside the blue line with 40.3 seconds left to seal the win.
Petizian finished with 19 saves on 21 shots faced for the Saints while Hutton had 24 saves for the shutout.
