by Brian O’Neill
Coming off a 6-3 win over Siena College in Albany the night before, the Central Connecticut club ice hockey team extended their win streak to three games with a 16-3 blow out victory over Western Connecticut, making their record 7-2-0.
“It’s bittersweet. It’s positive that we were able to keep our offense going,” said head coach Ben Adams. “A game like that is never good on either side. You hate to be on the other side of it, but it’s always nice to have one of those kind of games every once and a while.”
The Blue Devils started the first period on the attack and, for the most part of the next 60 minutes, stayed on it.
Frank Pisano opened the scoring with a goal in the fourth minute, beating the Colonial’s goalie to the high blocker side. Pisano was in on the action again when he assisted Kyle Leyerzapf with nine minutes left in the period. The third goal came just 40 seconds later, when freshman Daniel Purslow’s slap shot found the back of the net. The goal was Purslow’s first of his CCSU career.
With five minutes left in the first, Leyerzapf scored his second of the night on a power play goal. The last Blue Devil to score in the first period was Jack Johnson, whose shot deflected off a Western defender just 45 seconds after the last goal. With 3:25 left in the period, the Colonial’s finally answered, making it a 5-1 at the end of the first.
The scoring slowed in the second, with Western finding twine first seven minutes in. Central answered 7 seconds later, when Leyerzapf scored his third goal of the game. When asked how he felt about his hat trick performance after the game, he responded with one word and a smile: “Great.” The last goal of the period went to the Colonials, scoring with just eight seconds before the second intermission.
“Western has been in our league for a while and they’ve always been a tough opponent, and we didn’t know what we were coming into,’ said Adams. “Coming into the third [period], 6-3 tight game, our guys just woke up.”
The third and final period was an onslaught of Blue Devil offense, with Central scoring 10 goals. At one point, in an unprecedented move, the Colonials starting goalie, who had been pulled in the first period, was subbed back into the game for his replacement.
Central’s third period scorers were highlighted by two Brendon Quirion goals, his first as a Blue Devil. Adam Mink, Andrew Mazurkiewicz, Matt Lis, Connor Lorre, Kevin San Angelo, Max Maffuci, Johnson and Pisano all scored in the third.
Even with the 13 point win, Adams was already looking forward to the next game, stressing the fundamentals and “…making sure that they [the players] are staying focused. We’ve got a big week of practice this week, getting ready for the first weekend of the second ranking period.”
Looking to build on their three game win streak, the Blue Devils hit the road for the next two weekends, playing Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute on Nov. 1, Montclair State on Nov. 7 and UConn on Nov. 8, before coming back to Newington Ice Arena on Nov. 14 and 15 to take on Boston College and NYU.