Hearts were racing this weekend at Boss Ice Arena as the University of Rhode Island’s men’s ice hockey team faced the University of Pittsburgh in a competitive two-game stretch.
The Rams would lose the first game, in a tightly-contested matchup that would favor Pittsburgh 3-2. Despite the two losses, these games showed a lot to the players, especially fourth- year Jonathan Shaw.
“We can beat teams like that and we’re just as good as anybody if we play the full amount of time, but if we take shifts off then we’re gonna get a bad result,” Shaw said. “I don’t even think it’s defensively. I think it’s mentally being stronger, we were good defensively all game, today and yesterday, and just kind of folding mentally.”
In the second game of the series, the Rams would find themselves with a 4-1 lead with 18 minutes left in the third period. However, the game would fall out of their hands. With goals from Ian Keller, JC Bele and Josh Hrip, Pitt was able to tie the score at 4-4 by the end of regulation.
The game would head to overtime in which Pit would complete the comeback with a game-winning goal from Keller.
Joe Augustine, URI’s Head Coach, reflected on the result and what went wrong on Saturday night.
“We gotta be better in our zone,” Augustine said. “Again, we gave up too many shots, too many rebounds, our coverage up front was terrible.”
However, it wasn’t all negative for the Rams – scoring four goals in the first 40 minutes was one of the bright spots for Augustine.
“The positives, I mean, we can score goals and play the right way,” Augustine said. “But we just gave up too many goals this game and we don’t give up that many goals.”
After back to back losses, URI still sit in third place in the Men’s Division one Eastern States Collegiate Hockey League division and they are searching for a big comeback.
“It’s hard.” Shaw said. “I don’t know, we have to use this to motivate us and there is a good chance that if we handle things the right way we’ll play them next week. So we just gotta look at it that way.”
They now look forward to the playoffs, where they’ll face six seed Stony Brook University in the quarter finals. Despite URI’s perfect 4-0 record against the Seawolves this season, Augustine explained how his squad needs to look past the pair of losses.
“Well obviously it’s not the way we wanted to go in,” Augustine said. “I mean, giving up a 4-1 lead like that is unforgiving. I guess we’ll just sleep on it and come back Monday and see where we end up.”
The men’s division one ESCHL quarter final will take place at the Revolution Ice Centre in Pennsylvania on Friday at 4 p.m..