Courtesy of RITAthletics.com
ROCHESTER, NY – The RIT men’s hockey team (0-1-1) dropped its first game of the 2017-18 season, 6-1 to Union College (1-5-0) in front of 2,144 fans at the Gene Polisseni Center on Friday night.
Union led from the outset, leading 3-0 after one period and 5-1 after 40 minutes of play. Six different Dutchmen scored goals. Greg Campbell, Brett Supinski, Joseph Campolieto, Parker Foo, J.C. Brassard and Brendan Taylor scored for Union, while Darion Hanson earned his first collegiate win in net, stopping 24 shots.
Erik Brown (Keene, Ontario/Kemptville 73’s) scored RIT’s lone goal, while Christian Short (Vaughan, Ontario/Surrey Eagles) made 26 saves in net.
Union out-shot RIT, 32-25. Union was 2-for-5 on the power-play, while RIT was 0-for-4.
“Union did a great job not allowing us to get our forecheck going, owned us on 50-50 pucks and out-competed us,” said RIT head coach Wilson. “We just weren’t sharp in many areas.”
Union jumped right out to lead 3-0 after one period of play, out-shooting the Tigers, 13-3.
Campbell would get the Dutchmen on the board 3:29 into the contest, as he corralled a loose puck at his own blueline and motored untouched into the RIT zone, ripping a wrist shot through the arm and body of Short for his first goal of the season.
Supinski would make it 2-0 Union with 6:54 left in the period right after a power-play ended, as his shot from the right boards eluded Short, glancing off the post and in for his fourth goal of the season.
Just 24 seconds later, Campolieto scored his first collegiate goal, taking a feed from Jack Adams on the rush and firing a shot past Short.
RIT would close the gap to 3-1 just before the five-minute mark of the second period, as Brown swiped home a rebound for his third goal of the season. Adam Brubacher (Elmira, Ontario/Powell River Kings) found room and cut towards the Union net and had his backhander in tight stopped by Hanson. Gabe Valenzuela(Brampton, Ontario/North York Rangers) followed up and had two chances before Brown buried the rebound on RIT’s fourth shot of the sequence.
RIT seemed to seize the momentum for a stretch after, keeping sustained pressure in the Union zone. Unfortunately, the Tigers ran into penalty problems and Union made them pay scoring twice on the man-advantage in a span of 1:25 to go up 5-1.
Foo slammed in a rebound in tight after Short made the initial save on a shot by Cole Maier with two seconds left on a power-play after the Tigers killed off a long 5-on-3 to make it 4-1. Brassard beat Short through a screen for his first goal to make it 5-1 with 6:01 left in the period.
RIT out-shot Union, 14-6 in the third period, but were unable to cut into the deficit.
RIT leads the all-time series between the two schools, 12-8-3. The schools were also rivals during the 1980s when both were part of the ECAC in Division III.
RIT is right back in action Saturday night, as ECAC foe Rensselaer visits the Gene Polisseni Center. Puck drop is at 7:05 p.m.
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