Two setbacks drop men’s hockey to 0-8

MIDDLEBURY — The Middlebury College men’s hockey team dropped a pair of home games vs. NESCAC opponents this past weekend to fall to 0-8, 0-6 in league play, as first-semester play concluded.
The Panthers will return to action on Dec. 30, when they host the annual Middlebury Holiday Classic. They will face St. Anselm at 1 p.m., and SUNY Canton will meet Manhattanville at 4 p.m. The consolation and final will be played on Saturday, Dec. 31, at 1 and 4 p.m.
On this past Saturday, Amherst (4-3-1, 1-3-1) scored three first-period goals on its way to a 4-1 win over Middlebur. 
Amherst took a 1-0 lead 6:58 into the contest with a power-play goal. Thomas Lindstrom from behind the net fed Patrick Daly for score. The Purple and White made it 2-0 game two minutes later when Daly scored with a high snap shot from the right wing after a dish from David White.
Middlebury got on the board when Mitchell Allen carried the puck in from his own blue line for a shorthanded tally at 12:19.
Amherst regained a two-goal lead 45 seconds later, when Joey Lupo put home the rebound of a Jack Fitzgerald shot.
In the second period, Middlebury had a chance at 6:30, but Amherst goaltender Connor Girard stopped Andrew Neary’s shot and Allen’s follow-up bid. During a power play later in the period, Middlebury’s Brendan Dawson hit the crossbar, and the Panthers failed to score while skating five-on-three for 54 seconds.
The third period saw both teams with some chances to score, and Phil Johannson sealed the game for Amherst when he scored an empty-net goal with 2:58 left to play.
The shots were even at 29-29. Middlebury failed to score on six power plays. Panther goalie Stephen Klein finished with 25 saves, while Girard made 28 stops.
On Friday, Hamilton (6-0-2, 3-0-2 NESCAC) claimed a 3-0 win at Kenyon Arena. The Continentals scored twice in the first period and added an empty-net goal. Hamilton goalie Evan Buitenhuis stopped all 21 shots he faced, while Klein stopped 31 of 33 shots he saw.
Hamilton’s Conor Lamberti opened the scoring at 6:12, taking a transition feed from Neil Conway. Robbie Murden made it 2-0 on a power play 11:54, when his wrist shot from the left point found the net through traffic.
Middlebury had chances on a power play late in the period, but Buitenhuis denied Greg Conrad, Dawson and Joey Piccinini.
In the middle frame, the Panthers appeared to get on the scoreboard when Conrad jammed in a loose puck at 12:25, but the referees determined Buitenhuis had covered the puck, and the goal was waved off.
At the start of the third period, Middlebury’s Travis Stephens put a shot get past Buitenhuis, but defenseman Jon Carkeek swept away a puck that was sliding toward the goal line. Buitenhuis later made his toughest save of the night, flashing his left pad to stop Allen on a shorthanded breakaway.
The Continentals’ Truman Landowski tacked on the empty-net insurance goal. 

Share this story:

No items found
Share this story: