The No. 4/5 Hobart College hockey team rallied to take down Neumann 8-5 in an ECAC West game tonight in Aston, Pa. The Knights scored the first two goals of the game and the Statesmen rattled off the next seven goals, and hung on for the win.
Hobart is now 4-1-1 overall and 3-1-0 in the ECAC West. Neumann falls to 3-3-0 and 1-3-0 in conference play. Junior Ben Greinerscored two goals in the win. Senior Carl Belizario tallied two assists. Five of Hobart’s goals came on the power play.
Liam Board put the Knights on the scoreboard 11:12 into the game. Ryan Luiten earned the assist. Jory Mullin gave Neumann the 2-0 advantage just over a minute later. Shayne Morrissey set up the play. With 2:47 left in the opening period, Greiner broke through for Hobart. Senior Bo Webster set up the power-play goal.
Just 5:46 into the second period, junior Tyler Wolf tied up the game with another power-play tally. First-year Julien Denicourt and Belizario notched the assists. Sophomore Matt Pizzo gave the Statesmen their first lead of the game 13:20 into the second. With 26 seconds left in the middle period, senior Bobby Sokolregistered a power-play goal to make it 4-2. Belizario earned an assist on the play.
Greiner opened the third period with his second power-play goal of the game to extend Hobart’s lead to 5-2 at 2:59 in. At 5:27, sophomore Trevor Poirier added a power-play goal to stretch the Statesmen lead to four goals. Sophomore Jonas Toupal earned the assist. First-year Colin Merrill made it 7-2 at 9:19 after a pass from senior Nick Bingaman. At 10:30, the Knights stopped the Hobart scoring spree with their third goal of the game. Nick Perruccio capitalized on a power play after a passes from Johannes Sallila and Sam House. Just under three minutes later, Ryan Liuten added another power-play goal for Neumann to cut the deficit to three. Liam Board and Shayne Morrissey earned the assist. With 5:40 to go, Topf found the back of the net to get the Knights within two at 7-5. Perruccio and Sallila registered the assists.
The Knights pulled goaltender Matt Gibney with 1:15 to go for the extra skater, but were unable to take advantage. Instead, junior Jordan Haskell scored on an empty net for the final margin. Gibney finished with 26 saves. Frank Oplingermade 29 saves in all 60 minutes.
Each team recorded 34 shots. The Statesmen went 5-for-8 on the power play and the Knights went 2-for-7.
Hobart will be back in action on Friday, Nov. 18, when they host Nazareth for another ECAC West game at 7 p.m.
