MANCHESTER, N.H. – The Saint Anselm College men's ice hockey team dropped its regular-season home finale against cross-town rival Southern New Hampshire University, 3-1, at Sullivan Arena on Senior Night in a key Northeast-10 Conference contest.
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Saint Anselm currently sits at 12-13-2 overall and 7-8-2 in NE10 play while the Penmen improve to 10-14-0 overall and 8-9-0 against conference foes. With just one game left in the season, both teams sit fifth in the standings with 16 points, just one behind Franklin Pierce for the final postseason spot.
If the Ravens win against Assumption on Saturday, then both the Hawks and Penmen seasons' come to an end. However, with a Franklin Pierce loss, the winner between Saint Anselm and Southern N.H. will advance to the postseason. Puck drop is set for 7:20 p.m. at the Ice Den as the Hawks look to avoid missing the NE10 postseason for the first time in program history.
Eight soon-to-be graduating student-athletes, co-captain Dave Almeida (Bristol, R.I.), co-captain Trey Aiello (Williamsburg, Va.), Sean Verrier (Reading, Mass.), Mike Ferraro (Northbridge, Mass.), Ryan Spillane (Franklin, Mass.), Chris Googins (Braintree, Mass.), Liam O'Sullivan (North Hampton, N.H), and Jake Grade (Falmouth, Maine), were honored pregame for their careers at Saint Anselm.
Matt Monreal opened up the scoring for the Penmen with a quick shot past Hawks goaltender Michal Soustal (Unicov, Czech Republic) less than two minutes into the game.
Bookending the first period, Kyle Conover chipped the puck up the boards for his teammate Ryan Coady to send the puck between the legs of Soustal with 2:33 left, extending the lead for the Penmen.
The Hawks began the second period on the power play, but were unable to capitalize on the man-advantage opportunity. Minutes later, Saint Anselm found themselves needing to kill a five-minute penalty. Impressive saves by Soustal and sound defense from the Hawks kept the Penmen at bay for the entirety of the man-advantage. The crowd at Sullivan Arena gave the Hawks a well-deserved round of applause after completing the penalty kill.
After a defensive battle for much of the second period, the Penmen once again put one past the goaltender with 2:38 remaining in the stanza. Kyle Galloway was able to put a rebounding puck past Soustal with the help of Andy Somerville and Andrew Ray, who were credited with the assists on the scoring play.
Saint Anselm once again began the period on the man-advantage, this time making quick work of it, scoring just 22 seconds into the third thanks to sophomore Anthony Iacullo (Barrington Ill.), who used a nice pass from O'Sullivan to rifle the puck past Penmen's goaltender JT Kossakowski. Iacullo recorded his 11 goal and 26th point of the year. The score ended up being the last goal of the night for either team.
Soustal managed 26 saves in the loss for the Hawks, while his counterpart Kossakowski stopped 40 shots for the Penmen. Saint Anselm held a 41-29 advantage in shots. Junior John Femia (Canton, Mass.) won 18 of his 24 faceoff attempts.
