AMHERST, Mass—The Amherst College men’s hockey game against Bowdoin College was filled with surprises (and penalties) on Saturday afternoon. The Mammoths beat the Polar Bears 5-2 at the end of the three periods, after scoring three unanswered goals in three minutes to solidify the win.
Amherst was looking to better their record and finally score a goal against the Bowdoin, who shut them out 5-0 back in January.
The first period was characterized by one Bowdoin goal by Bradley Ingersoll, and seven penalties; three for Amherst and four for Bowdoin, all of which were killed off by the teams respective penalty kills.
Joe Arena, the head coach for Amherst, was absent from today’s matchup, as he was attending a funeral. However, the Mammoths had nothing to be worried about, as their stand in head coach was T.J. Snyder, former University of Massachusetts Amherst ice hockey captain.
“Our first period was pretty bad,” said Snyder. “Something we can work on is playing a full 60-minute game. No breaks in effort. Playing right to the buzzer.”
Their break finally came in the second period, when Connor Merrill, a freshmen from Brentwood, Tennessee, scored a clean backdoor goal to open the floodgates for Amherst.
When asked how it felt to score on a team that previously shut them out, Snyder replied, “It feels great. We were really struggling for goals there for a little while, so any time we get a goal, even on a power play, and especially against this team, it feels good.”
Amherst College senior Giancarlo Ventre, the starting goalie, stood on his head for most of the game, and especially in the first period, where he was forced to make some difficult saves to preserve the score.
In the end, Ventre led the Bowdoin goalie, Alex Zafonte, 37 to 23 saves.
“I unfortunately had to watch [the January game] from the stands,” said Ventre, “I had an injury. But it was great to be back in net and get the win tonight.”
“It’s a fantastic feeling,” said Ventre, “we struggled at the start of the season, and we’re finally starting to string a few wins together and make a good playoff run. I’m really excited.” He continued.
Patrick Daly made the score 2-2 at the very end of the second period on a 5-v-3 power play. Then, the Mammoths scored twice in the first two minutes of the third period, bumping the score up to 4-2 on a goal from freshman Joey Verkerke, and one from junior Matteo Mangiardi.
There were plenty of penalties to go around, and by the end of the game, both teams had racked up sixteen penalty minutes, eight penalties for each team.
Finally, in one last attempt to score, the Polar Bears pulled their goalie Alex Zafonte with 2:10 remaining, but quickly put him back in when sophomore Sean Wrenn lobbed one down the length of the ice and into Bowdoin’s empty net.
This win propels the Mammoths to 7-9-4 on the season and 5-6-3 in the league, while Bowdoin bows to 9-10-1 and 5-8-1 in the league.
Emma Needham 