Dartmouth Men's Hockey Loses to UNH in the Battle for the RiverStone

Saturday, January 16

Manchester, N.H. (Verizon Wireless Arena)

7:00 PM

Dartmouth College

New Hampshire

Dartmouth Men's Hockey Loses to UNH in the Battle for the RiverStone

1/16/2010 9:00:00 PM | Men's Ice Hockey

By: Dartmouth

MANCHESTER, N.H. – The Dartmouth men's hockey team lost its bid for the RiverStone Cup, falling to in-state rival, the University of New Hampshire, 5-2 on Saturday at the Verizon Wireless Arena.

UNH jumped on the board first at 16:49 when Blake Kessel passed from in front of the Dartmouth bench to Paul Thompson who was waiting behind the Big Green net. Thompson passed out front to Phil DeSimone who put it past netminder Jody O'Neill who was out of position in the net.

Sophomore Nick Walsh (Shannonville, Ont.) recorded his third goal of the season to tie the game at 12:22. Danny Markowitz (Jericho, N.Y.) stripped a UNH player of the puck and passed up to Walsh who kept the puck and shot from the left side circle, grazing the post as it sailed into the back of the net.

Matt Reber (Edina, Minn.) gave the Big Green the lead at 5:32 when Doug Jones (Marietta, Ga.) took the initial shot that was saved, the puck came out to Reber who was waiting to the left. The junior snuck it past Brian Foster as the goalie was moving to the other side of the cage. Adam Estoclet (Orono, Minn.) also picked up an assist.

The 'Cats tied things up with 00:31 left in the period when Thompson made an unbelievable second chance effort. Thompson took the shot that was saved by O'Neill with the UNH junior getting the rebound and laying out fully to poke the puck past O'Neill for the tying goal.

With back-to-back power play goals midway through the second period, UNH took a 4-2 lead and most of the wind out of the Big Green's sails.

Starting the third period Andrew Owsiak (Moose Jaw, Sask.) attempted to get a goal back but his shot didn't have enough power behind it to get past the UNH netminder and Kyle Reeds (St. Louis, Mo.) who was there for the followup saw his shot go just wide.

The 'Cats took a three-goal lead at 9:01 of the final period with 00:10 left on a Scott Fleming (Plainfield, Ont.) power play. Thompson recorded his third point of the night with the goal as UNH continued to hammer the puck in on O'Neill.

Paul Lee (Garden City, N.Y.) almost looked like he was going to get the goal back for Dartmouth as he skated in on Foster but was brought down from behind by a UNH player, resulting in a power play chance for the Big Green.

During the extra-man chance Evan Stephens (Bessemer, Mich.) rang one off the post as Dartmouth looked to find anything that would get it back into the game.

Late in the contest the top line of Joe Gaudet (Etna, N.H.), Estoclet and Jones really pressured Foster but just couldn't find an answer for the senior goalie as both Estoclet and Jones had shots stopped stopped cold by the Pembroke, N.H. native.

Kessel and Thompson were voted the co-players of the game as UNH improved to 10-7-4. Dartmouth fell to 4-12-0 on the season.

O'Neill finished with 33 saves and falls to 4-11-0 while Foster had 22 saves and improved to 9-7-4.

The Big Green will be back in action on Monday, traveling to Cambridge to take on Harvard for an ECAC Hockey contest that starts at 3:00 pm.