MANCHESTER, N.H. - The Saint Anselm men's
hockey team hosted NESCAC member Williams College this evening in
an inter-conference game. The Hawks played hard, but they
could not catch up to the speedy Ephs, as they fell to 15th-ranked
Williams, 6-2. The win lifts the Ephs to 8-3-2 (6-3 NESCAC),
while the Hawks fall to 6-6-1 (4-5-1 ECAC East).
The Ephs came off the bench hard, putting 16 shots on target in
the first period. The Hawks' starting goaltender Alex
Wyse (Amherst, N.Y.) made several tough saves before
Williams forward Alex Smigelski (Mountain Lakes,
N.H.) tapped in a wrap-around goal at 13:31. Before
the end of the first period, Ben Contini (Toronto,
Ont.) flipped the puck up into the top of the net to give
the Ephs an early 2-0 lead. At 6:23 in the second, Contini
struck again, knocking in a pass from Smigelski on a power
play. Just 13 seconds later, Smigelski scored his second goal
of the game, giving the Ephs a quick 4-0 advantage.
At 9:53 in the second, John Hennessey (Westwood,
Mass.) put the Hawks on the board, netting a goal from
Mike Richard (Derry, N.H.) and Jim Toomey
(Billerica, Mass.). Later in the period,
Brendan Carroll (Duxbury, Mass.) added to the
comeback, slapping in a goal from Hennessey and Toomey on a power
play. However, at 18:33 in the second, Connor Olvany
(Wilmette, Ill.) cut the Hawks' comeback short, putting
the Ephs up 5-2. At 10:08 in the third period, Smigelski
completed a hat trick, as he slapped in a power-play goal from near
the blue line just a split second after the end of a 5-on-3 Eph
advantage, to send the Ephs home with a 6-2 win.
Alex Wyse made 26 saves for the Hawks and allowed all six goals
in 50:08 minutes in the net. He was then replaced by
Corey Cotnoir (Bow, N.H.), who made four saves in
the final 9:52 minutes. Eph goalie Ryan Purdy (La
Jolla, Calif.) stopped 25 shots en route to his fifth win
of the season. The Hawks return to action tomorrow evening,
when they host the Middlebury College Panthers in an
inter-conference game beginning at 4:30 pm.
