Suffolk University’s men’s hockey team earned their first conference victory of the season in a 4-3 win against Western New England University Dec. 1.
The Rams took the lead about halfway through the first period when freshman Scott McManus scored off of a pass from graduate student Devin Lowe, giving McManus his first goal of the season.
Suffolk struck again in the second period when freshman Jack Kircher took a shot from the blue line, which sophomore Ryan Webb deflected to the back of the net. Less than two minutes later, Josh Milso and Tyler Borys assisted freshman Nick Liotino in extending Suffolk’s lead to 3-0. WNE struck back halfway through the second, with Brayden Patricia scoring off the faceoff to get the Golden Bears on the board.
WNE scored again early in the third, cutting the Rams’ lead to one goal with 13 minutes remaining, but a power play goal from freshman Jack Grace pushed Suffolk’s lead to 4-2.
WNE’s Rais Francis scored with just under five minutes left, but Suffolk was able to keep WNE scoreless for the remainder of the game to seal the 4-3 win.
The win snapped an eight-game losing streak for Suffolk, with their last win coming Oct. 28 against Salem State University.
This was also Suffolk’s first win of the season against a Commonwealth Coast Conference rival. Head coach Shawn McEachern said he was impressed with the team’s win after the difficult stretch in November.
“We’ve had a really tough schedule to start the season, and this is a huge league game for us. I thought our guys came out and played well. We moved the puck well, we made a couple mistakes and they made sure they put [the puck] in the back of the net, but I was happy with the way our guys played,” McEachern said.
The goals from McManus and Grace were the first of their Suffolk careers, a feat that has been common among the team this season.
“It seems like it happens a lot. We got like 12 or 13 freshmen playing. And then Chris Jackson in net got his first career NCAA win so it was a big night for those guys,” McEachern said.
The Rams earned another conference point the following day in West Springfield, as they took WNE to a shootout. WNE won in the shootout, but McEachern is focused on staying strong going into the holiday break.
“We gotta be at our best again to climb the standings, then we got Southern Maine next week out there [in Gorham, Maine] so we’re gonna try to finish up strong going into the break and we’ll have a good Christmas break and see what happens from there,” McEachern said.
The Rams are now 2-9-1 on the season but remain in last place in the CCC despite the strong weekend. Their final game of the 2023 calendar year will be at the University of Southern Maine Dec. 8.
