Men’s hockey swept by Towson

The University of Rhode Island men’s hockey team lost twice to Towson University this past weekend after getting swept by the University of Delaware last weekend.

Things appeared to be going the Rams’ way in Game 1.  Entering the second period, tied at zero, the Rams held a 10-2 advantage in shots. However, Towson would be the team to draw first blood, scoring just two minutes into the period. URI answered with 2:25 left in the second with a power play goal from Ray Boudiette. Towson scored again making it 2-1 heading into the third period.  URI tied the game at two from a goal scored by Matthew DaSilva early in the third period, but with just 6.5 seconds left in the game, Towson scored to win the game, 3-2.

On Saturday, the puck dropped for Game 2. It was made clear pretty quickly that it would not be going the Rams’ way as Towson scored just over one minute into the game. Boudiette would score just a minute later on a shorthanded goal to tie it back up at one, to which Towson responded with one of their own with 16:53 left in the first.

“Ray is a very dependable player on the power play but also on the penalty kill,” head coach Joe Augustine said. “You would love to have a lot more of those guys.”

Nick Amarone was ejected from the game with a game misconduct penalty for getting into a small scuffle after the whistle blew. Towson scored again making it 3-1. Entering the second period, they scored again to make it 4-1 at the end of the period. In the third, Boudiette and Mike Pesola scored for URI before Towson got one more to make the final score of the game 5-3 to complete the sweep of the Rams by Towson.

After losing four straight games, the Rams are now 5-8-1 on the season. They are dealing with injuries to multiple players forcing them to play some guys that are not 100 percent healthy. One of those guys would be Joseph Gravina who was injured during the Oct. 30 game against University of Delaware but returned to play in this past weekend’s games.

“He was not one hundred percent, but we have a lot more injuries so we had to sick him in there, he probably would have sat out both nights if we didn’t lose a couple people that we could have played,” Coach Augustine said.

Heading into this weekend’s games, Rhode Island looks to get back on track by focusing on improvements to their ability in the defensive end as well as on the penalty kill, on which they went 0-for-3 Saturday.

“We either got to learn how to stay out of the box or learn how to kill penalties but like they say, your best penalty killer is your goaltender and then out from there,” Augustine said. “We’re kind of in unchartered waters here. We’ve never been 5-8-1 so it’s whole new territory for not only the coaches but the players and we have a lot of work to do.”

Rhode Island will face the 8-9-0 United States Naval Academy this weekend. Game 1 will be Friday night at 7 p.m. and Game 2 will be played the following day at 7 p.m. Both games will be played at the Bradford R. Boss Ice Arena.