BY RANDY SCHULTZ –
The Erie Community College and Dakota men’s hockey teams each got one step closer to their goal Saturday afternoon at the SUNY Broome Ice Center in Binghamton, NY. Each won their respective hockey game and will now face each other Sunday afternoon to see who will win the FINAL NJCAA men’s hockey championship ever.
ECC defeated Mohawk Valley Community College, 7-4 while Dakota easily downed Hudson Valley Community College, 10-1. The two winners will now face each other Sunday afternoon to determine a champion.
The Kats were led by Brendan McFall and Christian Nati, each scoring two goal for the victors. McFall opened the scoring for ECC in the first period with a power play goal. Before the period ended Taiki Satoh and Nati had also tallied to give the Kats a 3-0 lead.
Nati netted his second goal in the second period to give ECC a 4-0 lead. MVCC then answered back with three straight goals scored by Kyle Cronin, CJ Buckingham and Petr Jamasek. But that would be as close as MVCC would get.
Michael Krause finished off the second period scoring for ECC, giving them a 5-3 lead going into the final period.
McFall scored early in the third to give the Kats a 6-3 lead. MVCC’s Jordan Trudeau closed the gap to 6-4. Alex Suchan finished off the scoring with a power play goal for ECC to make the final, 7-4.
Dakota led all the way in their game. Nial Mills led the way for the victorious Dakota team with a four-point game. Cody Longie and Kyler Moore each tallied two goals for Dakota.
The other goal scorers for Dakota were Andrew Carriere, Jesse Mendel, Josh Colleaux, Andrian Maass, Charles Joly and Noah Grant.
Evan Perkins scored the loan goal for Hudson Valley.
