BRUNSWICK, Maine – The Saint Anselm College men's ice hockey team suffered a 4-0 defeat to Bowdoin College in non-conference action on Tuesday evening.

The Hawks drop to 9-5-1 on the season while the Polar Bears, who are receiving votes in the most recent USCHO.com NCAA Division III National poll, improve to 7-1-1 overall. The Hawks are back in action on Friday, Jan. 6 when they meet Queen City Cup rival Southern New Hampshire University in Northeast-10 Conference play.

Senior goaltender Nick Howard (Burlington, Mass.) turned aside a career-high 43 saves in the Hawks goal. The senior faced 19 shots in the third period alone and made the save on 18 of them. Howard's 43 saves are the most by a Saint Anselm men's ice hockey netminder since Feb. 23, 2019 in which Colin Soucy '19 made 56 saves in a 2-1 triple-overtime win. 

Junior Tommy Schwartz (Ridgefield, Conn.) led the Hawks offense with four shots on goal while classmate Alec Grace (Laguna Hills, Calif.) followed closely with three.

Although the Hawks held a 14-11 edge in shots on goal through the opening 20 minutes of play, it was the Polar Bears who held a 1-0 lead. Gabe Shipper redirected a cross-ice pass at 12:35 of the period to open the scoring.

Late in the first period, the Hawks were awarded a power play and attempted five shots, three of which were turned aside by the Polar Bears goaltender AJ DiChiara. Senior Mark Leach (Londonderry, N.H.) rattled off two of the three shots on goal in the extra skater opportunity.

Bowdoin doubled its lead just 23 seconds into the second period on a goal by Ethan Kimball. Howard turned aside a shot attempt with the rebound heading to the corner but Kimball managed to put a shot toward the goal that deflected in front and found the back of the goal.

Andy Stoneman pushed the Polar Bears lead to three when he benefited from a blocked shot that found its way to the front of the goal where he was able to beat Howard, who was sliding across the goal to his right.

Stoneman found his second goal of the contest at the 1:27 mark of the third period. He sent a wrist into the upper left of the goal to extend the Polar Bears edge to four.

The Polar Bears put 47 shots on goal compared to 23 for the Hawks. Neither side found the back of the net with their power play chances as the Hawks had one opportunity while the Polar Bears had three. Senior Andrew Andary (Macomb, Mich.) was credited with three blocked shots for Saint Anselm.