MILWAUKEE, Wis. – The Trine University men's hockey team held off a late push by their hosts from the Milwaukee School of Engineering to pick up their program record 14th victory of the season by the score of 6-4.
The Raiders scored the first goal of the contest taking an early 1-0 lead in just the fourth minute of play. From there however the first period belonged to the Thunder as they would score four goals to take a demanding 4-1 lead into intermission.
Junior Brendan Prappas (West Bloomfield, Mich.) set up the first goal when he recaptured the puck in the offensive zone and moved behind the net before firing a pass back to directly in front of the goalie. There freshman Drew Welsch (Trenton, Mich.) fired a pinpoint shot into the back of the net for the goal.
The second and third goals came aided by power play opportunities. In the tenth minute the team ran their man-up offense extremely effectively moving the puck all around the offensive zone. After a pass to the point sophomore Chace McCardle (Southgate, Mich.) passed the puck to his line mate senior Hunter Payment (Monroe, Mich.) who fired a shot toward the net. Just inside the crease, Prappas was waiting to deflect the puck home for the 2-1 lead.
Then just three minutes later freshman Bobby Price (Sault Ste. Marie, Mich.) converted on a second power play opportunity. Junior Brad Jenion (Macclesfield, Great Britain) came up with the puck after it was tied up in the corner of the offensive zone passing it back through the faceoff circle to senior Garrett Hallford (McKinney, Texas) who passed it along to the opposite circle where Price put a shot into the top left corner of the net.
The final goal of the of the period came in the 17th minute, this time it was junior Frank Trazzera (Keller, Texas) who wrestled the puck away from the defense behind the MSOE net. From there he fired a pass to a waiting Thad Marcola (Almont, Mich.) who wasted no time making the score 4-1.
The Thunder extended their lead to 5-1 early in the second quarter. The goal came just into the sixth minute of play. Junior Brett Piper (Cartier, Manitoba) tied the puck up along the boards just inside the blueline of the team's defensive end. A short pass connected with Jenion who carried the puck through the neutral zone and into the offensive end before passing it to a streaking Marcola who ended up directly in front of the net with just the goalie in his way. The sophomore converted the shot for his second goal of the contest to give the team a 5-1 lead.
The Raiders began to mount a comeback attempt in the ninth minute of the period when they scored their second goal of the game and then again in the sixth minute of the third when they converted on a power play of their own to cut the score to 5-3. Another power play, along with an empty net to go up two men, pulled MSOE back within one at 5-4 with just over a minute remaining in the contest.
After winning the ensuing faceoff the Raiders pulled their goalie again and went on a full-frontal attack earning a few offensive zone faceoffs. One of those ended in a win for MSOE but a pass from the point was intercepted by Hallford leaving a free puck near the blueline where Prappas collected it and skated to just outside of the offensive zone before firing a long distance shot on the empty net to ice the contest at 6-4.
Trine improves to 14-4 overall and 7-3 in Northern Collegiate Hockey Association (NCHA) following the victory. They will finish off the weekend by facing off again with MSOE tomorrow, Saturday, Jan. 15. The game is scheduled for 5 p.m. ET.