APPLETON, Wis. -- Sophomore Thad Marcola (Almont, Mich.) notched the first hat trick of his career as member of the Trine University men's hockey team, leading the squad to a 5-2 victory over their hosts from Lawrence University. The victory secures the team at least a fourth-place finish in the Northern Collegiate Hockey Association (NCHA) regular season standings, earning the team home ice for the opening round of the Harris Cup Playoffs.
Despite where the contest would end up, the Vikings stuck first in the contest. In fact the team would score the first two goals of the game. The first came in the tenth minute of play with the second following just over three minutes later.
The lone penalty of the first period gave the Thunder a power play and eventually their first goal of the game. Sophomore Jackson Clark (Fort Mill, S.C) started the scoring play with the puck at the point, before passing it down into the right faceoff circle. There things got messy with both sophomore Chace McCardle (Southgate, Mich.) and junior Brendan Prappas (West Bloomfield, Mich.) in the area of the puck, before Prappas cleared the area and fired a pass to the opposite circle. Marcola notched his first goal of the night directly off of that pass pulling the team within one at 2-1.
The Thunder would tie the game in the 11th minute of the second period. Junior Brett Tierney (West Chicago, Ill.) brought a Lawrence forward to a stop and poked the puck away from him just inside the team's defensive zone. Classmate Frank Trazzera (Keller, Texas) collected the free puck and fired a long pass from one corner of the neutral zone to the opposite. The puck entered the offensive zone and bounced off of the far wall coming to rest in front of the net, where Marcola was waiting to strike it home.
The team wasted little time breaking the tie in favor of their first lead of the contest. Just under a minute later, junior Justin Meers (St. Charles, Mo.) came up with a steal at the offensive blueline, skated forward a few strides and fired a shot into the net making the score 3-2.
Trine added to their lead three times in the final period of play to take the final 5-2 victory. The first goal came in the seventh minute of play, when Marcola finished off his hat trick with a power play goal, with Prappas and junior Brett Piper (Cartier, Manitoba) adding assists.
The second goal of the period came in the ninth minute. Trazzera checked up the puck in the offensive end before bumping it forward to Marcola who skated back to the point before passing it away. Clark received that pass before skating toward the net and into the edge of a crowd of players. Blinded by a wall of bodies, the Viking netminder had no chance and Clark's shot struck true.
The team would ice the game just shy of the 18-minute mark of the final period, with junior Justin Hendrickson (Marquette, Mich.) coming up with a neutral zone steal and firing a long distance shot into the empty net.
The Thunder improve to 16-7-1 overall and 10-6-1 in NCHA play. The win put the team at 31 points for the NCHA season securing at least a fourth-place finish. The team could finish as high as third, depending on the results of the final regular season contests which will take place tomorrow, Saturday, Feb. 11. Trine will take the ice at 5 p.m. ET.
