From The Massachusetts Daily Collegian
By James Rust
The Massachusetts men’s club hockey team muscled past Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute 7-4, completing a sweep for the weekend. Saturday’s win extends the Minutemen’s (12-10) winning streak to five games.
UMass held a 4-1 lead and a 5-2 lead in the second period, but after a deflection by the Engineers’ (14-9) Ryan Caraher five minutes into the third period, the Minutemen’s cushion was cut to one. Five minutes later, UMass’ Ryan Concannon picked up a loose puck in the neutral zone after an open-ice hit sent bodies sprawled on the ice. Concannon spun around defenders at the blue line, darted to the right faceoff dot and ripped a wrist shot past Engineers goalie Alexandre Gosselin Neves to make it a 6-4 game.
“We’re playing for something right now, so the guys are excited,” said head coach Sean Prendergast. “We’re hungry and it shows in the way we come back when we go down.”
Despite the explosive opening period from the Minutemen and an early second period goal, the Engineers responded with a three-goal period of their own in the second. Caraher notched two in the period en route to a hat-trick, starting with a breakaway tuck at the halfway mark. Gliding in alone on goal, Caraher opened UMass goalie Ryan Dailida with a quick forehand-backhand move before sliding the puck through his five-hole to get RPI on the board.
Just two minutes later, Caraher received the puck from a faceoff. He took his space, whipping a wrist shot over Dailida’s glove and cutting the Minutemen lead to two. With two minutes left in the period, Brendan Ma capitalized on a broken play behind the Minutemen’s goal, pushing in a loose puck that bounced past Dailida as it rimmed around the boards to send the Engineers into the third period down 5-3.
“We were a little undisciplined in the second period,” said Pendergast. “We took a couple of penalties and they were able to capitalize on it. We also need to work on keeping pucks low, we had a couple of costly turnovers.”
UMass looked like it was going to run away with the game in the first period. Halfway through the period, Minuteman Dominic Boccelli collected the puck in the neutral zone. With no numbers and the rest of his line heading off for a change, he smacked the puck into the RPI zone. The Engineer’s starting goalie Tyler Sharek came out to play the puck, but a strange bounce off the end boards sent the puck over his stick and right in the path of UMass’ Tommy Hayes who was crashing the net. Hayes, while tumbling over Sharek, poked the puck home to give the Minutemen a 1-0 lead.
UMass’ Matthew Carrara capitalized on an RPI turnover in its own zone to extend the Minutemen lead to two just a minute later, ripping a wrist shot from the slot by Sharek. With 10 seconds remaining in the period and UMass slinging the puck around the offensive zone, a Minutemen shot rang off the post. The rebound landed on another teammate’s stick and a follow-up shot handcuffed Sharek, Matthew Haskell found the loose puck in the crease and shoveled it in to cap off the three-goal period.
“We have seniors that could have two games left in their career,” Prendergast said. “We want to play past the regular season.”
UMass looks to win its sixth straight game on Feb. 7 against Connecticut College. Puck drop is set for 8:30 p.m. at Mullins Center Community Rink.
(Originally published at https://dailycollegian.com/2025/02/umass-mens-club-hockey-completes-weekend-sweep-beats-rpi-7-4/)