Ben Caplan | The Montclarion
On Sat. Dec. 2, the Montclair State University men’s club ice hockey team fell to Sacred Heart University (SHU) 10-2 at the Wonderland of Ice.
The puck dropped at 8 p.m. to begin the first period and SHU’s forward Jake Pardue wasted no time and scored the first goal of the game at 0:31. Nearly a minute after Pardue’s goal, SHU was guilty of a two minute cross-checking minor. Throughout the first period, Montclair State’s defense struggled to keep the puck out of their zone and starting goaltender, John Pitera faced numerous shots on goal. Unfortunately, Pitera let two more goals slip past him at the 10:47 and 11:33 mark with goals credited to Ryan Lynagh and Darius Souza of SHU. The first period began to wrap up as MSU defenseman Kevin Brown was guilty of a hooking minor and thus, SHU went into the second period with a 3-0 advantage.
As the second period was underway, Pardue took a shot that went right into the back of the net and scored at the same 0:31 mark as he did in the first. The Red Hawks struggled to win face offs which ultimately hurt them when the puck was dropped in their zone. At 6:36 Pardue received a hat trick assisted by Rocco Coviello and Frank Vetere. MSU became aggressive in hopes of getting the puck, but was guilty of three penalties throughout the second, causing SHU to score yet again. With the score being 6-0, the Red Hawks had to shape up their offense.
Sooner or later, captain Sam Enright of Montclair State took a slap shot off of a pass from Brown at 12:30 which put the Red Hawks up on the board. The second period ended with one more goal by SHU’s Lynagh updating the score 7-1.
The third period began with a change in net for Montclair State. Nicola De Marzo saw some ice time for the remainder of the 20 minutes left in the game. However, SHU was still dominating. At 1:16 nearly a minute after Montclair State’s Lucas Prospero’s minor hooking penalty, Scott Martin of Sacred Heart scored giving their team an even bigger lead. The Red Hawks down by 7, still struggled with face off wins and racked up more penalties.
With plenty of action in the third, it wasn’t surprising when another goal was credited to SHU’s Coviello at the 14:52 mark. Eventually the puck saw some time in Sacred Heart’s zone and went past their goalie at 15:29 thanks to MSU’s Mark Frade with an assist by Matty Dreisbach. With the score 9-2, it was pretty obvious that the Red Hawks would face a tough loss on the road. But SHU had to insure an even bigger lead and scored another goal with just four minutes left in the third.
With another tough loss this season, the Red Hawks own a record of 4 wins and 11 losses thus so far. The team will soon face off the University of New Hampshire and Marist College this weekend of Dec. 8 and 9 on the road.
