The University of Rhode Island men’s hockey team split their series against Towson University this past weekend winning Friday night’s game 7-1 and dropping Saturday’s contest 4-2.
The offense for the Rams were firing on all cylinders Friday night when junior Sandy Gray got a wrap around goal for URI to open the scoring in the first minute of the game. With 12:40 remaining in the first period sophomore William Schlichtig scored to make the score 2-0 in favor of URI. Jonathan Alsfeld followed up his performance last week by getting his second hat trick in as many games, scoring two of the goals on the penalty kill, making the score 5-0 Rams at the end of the first period.
Gray scored the only goal in the second period, his second of the day, increasing the Rams lead to 6-0. Although only one goal was scored in the second there was still a lot of action, and penalties. Much like last weekend, Friday’s game featured many trips to the penalty box as there were a combined seven penalties totaling 14 minutes in the second period.
URI would take a roughing penalty in the opening minutes of the third, giving Towson the opportunity to put them on the board making the score 6-1 in favor of the Rams. URI answered right away however, as freshman Patrick Creamer scored his first goal as a Ram on a pass from junior Luke Vendetto to give the game’s final score of 7-1.
Saturday’s game saw the return of senior captain Mike Pesola who missed Friday’s game due to an injury. It was also freshman goaltender Daniel DeSilva’s first start for URI who started in place of the regular goaltender J.T. Ketzenberger. Saturday started off in a similar fashion for URI as freshman Billy McNally gets his first goal in a Rhode Island Uniform off the first shot on goal in the game putting URI up 1-0 early on. Unfortunately for the Rams Towson scored a goal with 3 minutes left in the first to tie the game at one a piece.
Around the halfway mark in the second period, Vendetto was called for a five minute major and ejected from the game after being called for targeting the knee on after a big hit on a Towson player. URI was able to kill off the penalty and shortly after Grey got his third goal of the weekend to put the Rams up 2-1 to end the second period.
The third period was full of more penalties for both teams with a combined five penalties in the span of about five minutes. During this time URI was down two men and trying to kill a 4 on 3 penalty when Towson scored on the powerplay to tie the game at two apiece. With one man still in the box Towson scored again on the powerplay to take the lead 3-2. With 30 seconds left in the game URI pulled their goalie and Towson scored on the empty net to bring the final score 4-2.
URI is looking to get head coach Joe Augustine his 600th win this weekend when they play away at Stony Brook University on both Friday and Saturday.