PITTSBURGH, Pa. – January 7, 2021 – The Chatham men's hockey team rebounded in impressive fashion with a 7-3 whitewash of the visiting Buffalo State Bengals on Friday night. The win improves the Cougars to 4-6-2 overall.
It took just 68 seconds for the Cougars to get on the scoresheet when sophomore
Chris Dusek scored his first goal of the season after getting assists from classmate
Carson Grainer and senior
Tristan Simm. It was the first of four consecutive first-period goals for the hosts.
Lightning then struck twice in a matter of 21 seconds. It started on the power play when Grainer and junior
Aidan Girduckis combined on sophomore
Evan Mitchell's first goal of the game. Just a few moments later, first-year
Tyler Inlow notched an unassisted score to make the score 3-0. Then it was junior
Kenneth Gill's turn in finding the back of the net after getting a pass from classmate
Matt Mood.
Buffalo State would respond with the next two goals, one to close the first and one to open the second. After the Bengals made it 4-2, it was all Chatham. The Cougars' newest addition,
JJ Fecteau, scored his first collegiate goal after assists by Inlow and first-year
Caden Shwetz. The next two goals were scored by Mitchell, marking just the fourth hat trick in Cougars' history, with the second of his three goals being assisted by first-year
Jackson Koblick and junior
Andrew Warhoftig. The Bengals added one more goal in the third, but it was too little too late as the Cougars rolled to a four-goal victory.
Chatham's seven goals tied the single-game program record set in 2019, and the seven goals marks the most scored in the first two periods of a game in program history. As for statistics, Chatham nearly doubled up in shots 38-20 but the faceoffs were split right down the middle at 28 apiece with Mood going 12-4 in the circle. Senior goalie
Ricardo Gonzalez made 17 saves in victory.
Chatham now has a week to prepare for its return to UCHC play, which resumes on Friday, January 14 against King's College with the puck dropping at 7:00 pm.
