BY RYAN TOUHEY
Sports Editor
On Oct. 20, the Sacred Heart men’s ice hockey team tied Providence College at Webster Bank Arena in Bridgeport in overtime, 2-2. Providence is ranked 5th in the nation and have nine players who have been selected in the National Hockey League (NHL) Draft.
“Going into the game, we watched a lot of video on them (Providence) and we knew they were going to work hard,” said senior co-captain Liam Clare. “Our mentality was to play our game, not make things too difficult, and we’d see what would happen.”
Providence got on the board early in the first period, as they scored on their first shot of the game at the 4:07 mark. They scored again seven minutes later, to make it 2-0.
Sacred Heart however kept up with Providence’s fast pace, and eventually broke through in the second period on a power play goal from redshirt junior forward Jason Cotton. That made the score 2-1 Providence, and it stayed that way for the rest of the second period.
During the second intermission, Clare and the rest of the team were told by the coaching staff to, “not let their feet off the gas pedal,” and to continue to stay with Providence.
In the third period, Sacred Heart continued to prevent Providence from scoring again. However, they couldn’t seem to get the puck passed Providence’s sophomore goalie, Gabe Mollot-Hill, again. Time was running out in regulation, but with 2:46 remaining in the game, Sacred Heart’s junior forward Austin McIlmurray, scored the tying goal, which nodded things up at 2.
The game wound up going into a 5-minute overtime, where neither team could score the game-winning goal. Thus, the result was a 2-2 draw. Senior goaltender Brett Magnus, had 31 saves on the evening.
“It was a great tie but obviously we weren’t satisfied,” said Clare. “We don’t want to refer to this game as being the highlight of our season.”
