The Stony Brook Seawolves hockey team improved its record to 2-0 Sunday afternoon with a 6-2 win over the Kent State Golden Flashes at The Rinx in Hauppauge, New York.
Stony Brook scored four goals in the first period to open the game with a significant lead. The goals came off the sticks of junior defenseman Frank Coscia, sophomore forward Kevin Murphy and freshman forward Ian Bernes, who scored twice.
This offensive influx led to the removal of Kent State senior goaltender Sky Buller in favor of junior Alex Okicki, who had stopped 46 shots the night before.
The Golden Flashes came out after the first intermission with a new conviction, burying its first goal of the weekend only 41 seconds into the period. They continued to put up a fight throughout the period, scoring twice to diminish their deficit to three goals by the end of the period. Stony Brook only scored once in the second period. Going into the third period, the Seawolves head coach Chris Garofalo needed to refocus his team after the momentum had shifted in favor of Kent State.
“I was pretty much blunt with them,” Garofalo said. “They were joking around a little bit and I said, ‘Hey guys, how do you think you did this period?’ And they said terrible so I asked, ‘then why are you guys joking around? I’d think about how you can improve this period and come out flying.’”
Stony Brook showed a stronger effort in the third period when freshman goalie Robby Lockwood turned away all four shots that came his way. The team’s biggest test came 5:39 into the period when sophomore forward Devon Palmieri received a five-minute major penalty. The team successfully killed off the Kent State power play and backed the kill up with a goal from junior forward Ori Benyamini. Benyamini picked up two goals and an assist on the afternoon, giving him five points in the first two games of the season.
“Me and my linemates [have been clicking],” Benyamini said. “We’ve been getting some good chemistry going in practice and it’s been working in games. Everybody’s working hard and things are just going our way right now.”
Benyamini’s goal allowed Stony Brook to breathe easy and skate to a 6-2 final score. After winning a second consecutive game, Garofalo was pleased with the competitiveness of his squad.
“I think yesterday was a tune-up game for us because we were just getting into the season,” Garofalo said. “I think this was a more disciplined game for us, not from a penalty perspective, but as far as connecting better, we just played better as a unit.”
Stony Brook will play its first away game of the season at Rutgers in the first game of a home-and-home series on Friday Oct. 6 at 7 p.m.. The team lost both matchups with the Scarlet Knights in New Jersey last season and will look to pick up a big win in its first Eastern States Collegiate Hockey League game of the year.
