In the waning seconds of Stony Brook Men’s Ice Hockey’s home opener against William Paterson University on Saturday, Oct. 6, Stony Brook’s junior defenseman Kyle Huhn scored an unassisted goal to end the game 4-2. Huhn’s goal earned Stony Brook men’s hockey team its seventh home-opening win since 2012, and its first win of the season.
“First game of the season, we have to work some kinks out, but I was happy with the way the boys played,” head coach Chris Garofalo said. “We wanted a little more penetration in front of the net, overall it was a success.”
The Seawolves and Pioneers then exchanged three goals in a span of four minutes in the second period. Stony Brook struck first in the barrage when Huhn scored off a rebound. His goal was followed by William Paterson’s junior forward Thomas Bauer notching one of his own by sneaking the puck past junior goaltender Richard Shipman. Senior defenseman Frank Coscia answered back with a rocket of a slapshot from the blue line that got past Pioneers goaltender Jeremy Hamerquist’s glove and into the back of the net, putting Stony Brook up 3-2 with 10 minutes left in the second period.
With five minutes to go in the second period, the match took a frightening turn as freshman forward Dustin Rinaldo sent William Paterson junior forward Scott Huber crashing into the boards behind the net. Huber eventually got back to his feet and skated to the bench.
“It was a hard hockey play going into the corner, we were on penalty kill, it was a loose puck, Rinaldo was going in hard, from my perspective [Huber’s] feet went out,” Coscia said.
The hit sparked rage between the two teams as freshman forward Nate Chuckran and graduate Shawn Lacorte got into a scuffle, taking jabs at each other before being separated by refs. Both received two-minute roughing penalties. However, Lacorte contested the call with the referees and placed his hand on the assistant referee. Lacorte was disqualified from the rest of the match for unsportsmanlike conduct.
Huhn capped the night with Stony Brook’s final goal of the game to give it a 4-2 victory in game one.
Stony Brook started game two at a faster pace than game one. Huhn opened the scoring, rocketing a slapshot into the net two minutes into the game. Three more Seawolves goals followed Huhn’s in the first period to give the home team a 4-0 lead.
With five minutes left in the first period, Shipman made a strong glove save on freshman forward Hunter Ledwith’s breakaway, saving a close Pioneer opportunity.
“Funny thing is, I’m usually not the best at breakaways,” Shipman said. “I worked a lot this past summer on my weaknesses, I kept my feet in more to get a better reaction and the trick is to have [Ledwith] make the first move. When he made the first move, I was able to push over and make the save.”
The team’s offensive pressure forced the Pioneers to make a change in net. Hamerquist was replaced by sophomore goaltender Nathan Leo at the beginning of the second period. The change of goalie did not stop the barrage of goals, as junior forward Nick Belger, Coscia and senior forward Brad Riccardi tallied three more goals against Leo in the second period en route to a 9-0 victory.
“We produced. We scored. We were waiting for that yesterday. Today, the way we were moving the puck, it was great, had a lot of shots and we penetrated the net better than Saturday night,” Garofalo said.
The Seawolves secured their first two wins of the season against the Pioneers. The team’s next opponent is the Rutgers Scarlet Knights. Gametime is set for 7 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 12 in New Brunswick, New Jersey.
Correction: October 11, 2018
An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that Belger, Coscia and Riccardi scored three out of nine goals in the second periods of both games. They combined for three goals in the second period on Sunday.
