Sports
M. hockey clinging to home-ice advantage despite weekend losses
By Kaitlin McCabe ’16
February 11, 2016
Tags sports
Despite its unnerving weekend facing Colby (4-8-2 NESCAC; #9) and Bowdoin (6-5-3 NESCAC; #5), the Hamilton College men’s hockey team (7-5-2 NESCAC; #3) remains near the top of the overall conference standings. The nail-biting action and losses in both games left both players and fans devastated and exasperated, but in reality, the results were not that detrimental to the team’s standings or mentality.
“It’s really important to remember that despite a disappointing home weekend, we’re still in a pretty good place in the standings,” alternate captain Tyler Lovejoy ’16 emphasized. “Our goals to secure a home playoff game and to win the NESCAC championship have not changed.”
The Mules held the Continentals in neck-and-neck competition on Friday, Feb. 5, forcing the teams into overtime. Both teams came out strong in the opening period: Colby’s Geoff Sullivan scored a power-play goal 2:35 into play, and Hamilton’s Neil Conway ’18 tied the score midway through the period. Brandon Willett ’18 and Robbie Murden ’17 both assisted on the play.
Conway and Murden lead the NESCAC in both points (24 and 28, respectively) and assists (16 and 15).
Hamilton almost closed the game just at the start of the allotted overtime, when team captain Kenny Matheson ’16 claimed a Bowdoin shot-on-goal blocked by Hamilton’s Evan Buitenhuis ’18. Matheson proceeded to launch a 2-on-2 rush, but his promising play was ultimately unsuccessful, his attempted shot-on-goal grazing the crossbar. From then on, it appeared as though the game would end in a stalemate. But as the clock ran down below the 30 second mark, Colby’s Devin Albert shot the puck past Buitenhuis, netting the game winning goal.
With its 2-1 victory, Colby earned its third NESCAC win of the season.
If the Continentals were slightly unnerved after facing Colby, they were staggered by Bowdoin’s action in the rink. A whopping total of 10 Bowdoin players contributed to the team’s winning six goals.
Midway through the first period, the guests scored three times in a short span of 2:03 to dominate their hosts—a lead that would carry throughout the entirety of the game.
Hamilton reached the board less than two minutes into the second period, thanks to a slap shot from Conor Lamberti ’17. Conway sent a pass from behind the net to Murden below the right faceoff circle and Murden’s cross-ice pass to Lamberti set up the goal. At 3-1, a rebound was attainable, but the Polar Bears fiercely clinched their unstoppable lead in the second half of the period, scoring two more goals and thus extending their dominance on the ice to 5-1.
Though Hamilton continued to challenge Bowdoin in the final period, the team’s chance of redemption was slim. Conway, assisted by Murden and Lovejoy, scored a goal off of a rebound, bringing the score to 5-2, but Bowdoin matched it with an empty-net goal late in the period.
Buitenhuis stopped 29 shots for Hamilton against Bowdoin, who have dropped three of four since recording an 11-game unbeaten streak. He has now dropped down to second-place in NESCAC goaltender statistics for save percentage, from .957 to .950.
Hamilton men’s hockey has also dropped from second- to third-place rankings in NESCAC team statistics in scoring offense, and power play efficacy.
Head coach Robert Haberbusch acknowledged the team’s mistakes in the weekend’s match-ups, such as unclaimed, unchallenged rebounds around the opponents’ nets. “We had chances to win each game but we didn’t pounce. If we finish some of those opportunities early on it could have dramatically changed the course of the game,” he said.
Yet, the 0-2 weekend hardly puts as drastic of a dent in the men’s season as the weekend’s sorry losses might suggest. The Continentals remain ranked 15th in the nation by both D3hockey.com and USCHO.com.
Lovejoy remains realistic, level headed and focused on the team’s goals, despite what could be perceived as a demoralizing weekend for the previously undefeated squad. “We’ve put together some great wins this season where we’ve been rewarded for our hard work, but not every game will go your way,” he said. “We think the adversity of a couple losses will make us a stronger team in the long run, and we’re looking forward to getting back on track this weekend.”
The weekend’s trials might have been humbling, but the upcoming matches will hardly require a significant rebound. All in all, only a few areas—those on the breakout in the defensive zone and neutral zone, according to Haberbusch—require greater attention, execution and due diligence. In terms of game plan and dynamics, the coach maintained that while the team is “always trying to get better,” they “have no drastic changes planned.”
“For the most part we’re sticking to what got us here,” he said. “At this time of year, you are what you are, and fortunately for us we like what we are.”
This weekend, Hamilton hosts the team’s final home games of the regular season against Connecticut College (0-12-2 NESCAC; #10) and Tufts (4-6-4 NESCAC; #7). The competition begins Saturday night against the Camels at 7 p.m.