Posted by Katie Peverada
The Skidmore Thoroughbreds skated away with a win and loss this weekend, falling to the University of Massachusetts-Boston Beacons with a score of 6-4 but bouncing back quickly to shutout Babson College 3-0.
On Friday night, the Thoroughbreds looked poised to upset the 12th ranked Beacons, jumping out to an early 1-0 lead just 19 seconds in to the game when David Limoges '15 put the puck past Zack Andrews of UMass. The Beacons responded just 13 seconds later with a goal of their own, and the rest of the first period was played at the score of 1-1. Ben Freiberg '16 turned away 17 first period shots, while the offense only put up 4 shots in the entire first period.
Skidmore started the next period with another bang, working hard in the corners and on the blue line to keep the puck in the offensive zone. Brendan Cottam '13 benefited from the hard work at the 2:26 mark when he lifted the puck into the back of the net. The assists went to Chris Powers '14 and Ondrej Krajnak '16. Skidmore continued to create a lot of opportunities throughout the period, but were continually shutdown by the strong goaltending of Zack Andrews. The Beacons scored two in the period, as Jeremy Finger muscled by the Thoroughbreds to slip one in for the tie, and Kit Sitterley put the Beacons on top 3-2. Skidmore's greatest opportunity came with 1:06 remaining when the Thoroughbreds stormed into the zone on a three versus one, but missed the net with the shot. That play was indicative of the entire game for Skidmore, as the Thoroughbreds got pucks into the zone but struggled to hit the net with shots.
Vlad Gavrik '14 added a third period goal to tie the score at 3-3, but the Beacons responded with two of their own, continually out-skating the Thoroughbreds. Skidmore's final tally came from Krajnak when he tipped in a slap shot from Brad Schuler '14. Michael Kuhn would add an empty net goal to put the final score at 6-4. Freiberg stopped 36 shots in the loss, but his play was much better than the score indicates.
Freiberg continued his strong play the next game as he stopped all 21 shots he faced to record the first shutout of his career. The Thoroughbreds recovered from the previous nights loss and improved to 10-10-2 overall. The first period went scoreless, but Dave Dupuis '14 put Skidmore on the board first. Dupuis benefited from the hard work of Dalton Weinstein '14, who rushed the puck up the ice and got it Dupuis who put it past Zeke Testa. Brad Schuler '14 closed out the scoring of the second period when he put home a goal at the 10:59 mark. Zach Menard '13 scored an empty net goal with 2:13 remaining in the third period. Schuler finished with two points, with Erik Nilsson '15, Ondrej Krajnak '16 and Anders Gunderson '15 getting assists on the night.
Next weekend, the Thoroughbreds travel to the state of Vermont to fight for a position in the ECAC East playoffs against St. Michael's and Norwich University.