By Brittany Burke

The CCSU hockey team took to Olympic Rink in Simsbury looking rejuvenated since its last game there. However, the team once again came up short in the third, with too little time left and lost 3-1 to the University of Massachusetts.

“We hustled hard and it’s always hard losing a game after you hustle like that,” said Matt Siracusa, who had an assist on CCSU’s lone goal of the night.

“The other team had some bounces that should’ve gone our way and the assist doesn’t really matter to me, I’d rather get the win and I thought we were gonna come back like we did when we were down at Marist but we just have to worry about Florida now.”

In a game attributed greatly to the defense of the two opposing teams, it took 46 minutes and 38 seconds for UMass to get on the board with a one-goal advantage.

In between the pipes for CCSU was Ross Mocko, who shut out the Minutemen for two periods before allowing them to take the lead.

With 13:22 still to play in the game the score on the board remained at zero, but a lucky bounce allowed for the Minutemen to edge out in front with the one goal gain. However, the swing of momentum was on UMass’ side.

Twenty-five seconds after the initial goal UMass struck again, giving the team the two-goal advantage with 12:57 left to play in the game.

“I thought we were a better team but it’s just one of those things when you let a weaker team hang around, you never know what’s going to happen and they got lucky off a bounce just throwing a puck to the net and they got a little momentum and they built off it,” said Head Coach Ben Adams.

CCSU’s defense stepped up after faltering in the game against Marist at home. Going head to head with UMass in a game full of speed and intensity, the scoring was once again stagnant with less than five minutes to play in the period.

A shot taken from the blue line by Kevin Paglinco from Siracusa and Evan Mink put CCSU back into the game, with only a one goal separation.

“We were looking for anything, just trying to put pucks on net, that’s all and mine ended up going in,” said Paglinco. “I thought we were playing well the whole game we had a lot of chances. Two pucks in the first period that were on their goal line could’ve went in but just didn’t, I think a couple good bounces for them and the puck ended up going in the net.”

The second semester has seen a variety of CCSU players get on to the score sheet, adding depth to the lines and giving the team the upper hand. However it is still a facet of the game that the Blue Devils are struggling with.

“We need another scorer, like when Stan [Ryan Stanley] and Knobs [Jon Knobloch] don’t deliver we need another one and we haven’t found it yet,” said Mink.

With go to scorers and the increase in depth, the offense isn’t something that CCSU generally had trouble with, it has been the defense. Despite the night’s loss the CCSU defense showed great improvement breaking out of the zone and taking the pucks up the net. Once all the pieces are in place it just comes down to playing a full 60 minute game and finishing strong.

“I think our breakouts were the best part of the day,” said Adams. “We were coming up the ice controlled keeping possession and that’s important. They [UMass] really didn’t catch on to what we were doing for the breakout all game because we were breaking out pretty easy all night, just came down to finishing tonight, we couldn’t finish.

“The biggest thing that these guys need to work on is finishing out, d-zone coverage over the last three games has been very good, staying out of the box which has been very good, a lot easier to get into the flow of the game,” Adams explained. “I think we need to start getting some wingers to stretch wide open up some soft areas and really just working on maintaining possession of the puck and attacking the net.”

With 13 seconds remaining and CCSU playing with six players with Mocko pulled the Minutemen struck again, sinking the empty netter for the two-goal advantage and eventual win.

The team travels to Florida Thursday to take on Florida Gulf Coast University, the best team in the nation, for a two-game contest. The Blue Devils return to Simsbury Feb. 5 to take on in-state rivals Western Connecticut.