The Boston College men’s hockey team continued their recent string of strong play, taking down UMass 7-3 on Friday night for their third consecutive win and first home victory of the season. The Eagles got goals from seven different players and looked like the better team pretty much all night as they started off their weekend series with a very strong performance from up and down the lineup
UMass got on the board first just about halfway through the first on a goal that came a bit against the run
of play. After a mostly even opening few minutes, the Eagles were able to string three or four dominant shifts together, but fell behind 1-0 when UMass scored on a centering pass that took a deflection off of a BC defenseman in front of the net and got past Louka Cloutier. BC kept their strong early play going, however, and tied things up just over a minute later when Dean Letourneau deflected a Luka Radivojevic shot from the point into the top corner for his fourth goal of the season. The Minutemen regained their lead late in the period after BC got stuck in their own zone for an extended period of time and failed on a few chances to clear the puck, leading to a chance from in tight that beat Cloutier over his shoulder to make it a 2-1 game heading into the first intermission.
Drew Fortescue tied things right back up just over two minutes into the second period, after a nice shift by the team’s third line of Michael Hagens, Will Moore, and Ryan Conmy. The trio had possession in the offensive zone for just about the entirety of their shift and the puck eventually found its way to Fortescue on the boards. He fired a quick shot that found its way through some traffic in front and into the back of the net to make a 2-2 game for his third goal of the season. James Hagens made it a 3-2 game with 7:15 remaining in the second period, when he took a slick feed from Teddy Stiga in the low slot and ripped it past the goalie for his fourth of the season. It was a great period of hockey from BC, who controlled the puck for most of the 20 minutes and outshot their opponents 14-5 as they took their 3-2 lead into the third.
They doubled their lead just 44 seconds into the third period when Ryan Conmy scored on a carryover power play to make it a 4-2 game. Conmy fired home a one-timer from the slot off of a great pass from James Hagens to score his third of the season and give BC some breathing room in this one. Will Vote made it a 5-2 game less than a minute later, slamming home a rebound off of a Dean Letourneau shot to really give BC some separation early on in the period. It looked for a while like that might be it on the night, but UMass managed to get back in the game after a bizarre sequence that involved Teddy Stiga drawing a penalty before somehow getting whistled for a five minute major and hit with a game misconduct of his own. UMass made it 5-3 with a goal on their extended power play time, but BC managed to kill off the rest of it without much trouble to hold on to their two goal advantage. Brady Berard clinched things an empty net goal after UMass pulled their goalie with about four minutes left in regulation and senior Will Trager added another on the next shift for the first goal of his collegiate goal and the Eagles took this home a 7-3 win to start this series off on the right foot.
This was just a really strong performance by BC and a nice continuation of what they were doing last week against Vermont. There’s not really a whole lot to say except that the Eagles dominated just about the entire 60 minutes of this one and that the final score line could have been even more lopsided if they converted on a few more of their chances. They’ll look to complete the sweep and make it four wins in a row tomorrow night when they travel to Amherst to face the Minutemen in their building.
