By Sarah Moomaw, News Staff
In a rematch of last year’s preseason exhibition, the men’s hockey team faced off against the St. Francis Xavier X-Men on Sunday afternoon, falling 4-3 at Matthews Arena.
“It was a good test for us just to see how our guys measured up,” second year head coach Jim Madigan said. “What we wanted to come out of today’s game was to see how our kids have absorbed our systems and what we’ve been teaching in practice and look for compete for some intelligent hockey play … we were able to take a lot out of here today.”
In 2011, the two squads put up 13 goals in the Huskies 8-5 loss, combining for 69 shots on net. This season, seven goals came off of 70 shots.
“We want to direct a lot of shots to net, which we did,” Madigan siad. “I think we’ll get our looks, but we’ll have to bare down in our zone.”
The Huskies opened with eight shots before sophomore defender Josh Manson found the back of the net with help from senior right wing Vinny Saponari and sophomore left wing Adam Reid, for an early 1-0 lead at 7:23.
Just three minutes later, sophomore left wing Ludwig Karlsson gave Northeastern a two-goal lead on the power play. Newcomers left wing Kevin Roy and defenseman Colton Saucerman picked up the assists.
The X-Men’s senior defender Spencer McAvoy responded with his own power play goal at 12:28, cutting the Huskies’ lead to 2-1.
Northeastern continued to lead the shots on goal column by the completion of the second period, 24-19, but the score had been leveled to three apiece.
Senior center forward Garrett Vermeersch opened the middle stanza with a 3-1 leading goal only 35 seconds into the period.
Xavier once again responded, adding two goals roughly a minute apart by freshmen left wings Brad Cuzner and Cory MacIntosh at 4:21 and 5:25 respectfully, knotting the game at three apiece.
At 10:23 in the third, the X-Men took the lead, 4-3, behind senior defender Josh Day’s power play goal during a scrum in front of third-line goalie Bryan Mountain.
Senior goaltender Chris Rawlings made five saves while allowing one goal in the first period. In the second, the Huskies’ late-summer commit freshman Derick Roy took a turn between the posts, allowing two goals (11 saves). Mountain finished the game for Northeastern, giving up a goal on seven shots faced.
The Huskies open regular season Wednesday night at Matthews Arena against the Merrimack Warriors. Puck drop is set for 7 p.m. If you can’t be there, follow @HuntNewsSports for updates.
