The Middlebury men's hockey team picked up a 5-1 win at UMass.-Boston on Friday night. The Panthers outshot the Beacons 38-27 in the game as Charlie Townsend netted a pair of goals to lead Middlebury to the win. The Panthers win their third straight game to improve to 13-4-4 overall and 9-3-4 in league play, while the Beacons fall to 9-11-1 and 5-10-1.
Middlebury opened the game with the only two goals in the first period for a 2-0 lead. Sophomore Martin Drolet put the visitors on the board when he took a feed from rookies Mathieu Dubuc and Tom Clayton and potted his team-leading 14th goal of the year on the power play at the 4:03 mark. Senior John Sullivan and sophomore Jak Knelman combined to set up Townsend for his first score of the night with 3:04 to go in the opening frame.
UMass Boston cut the deficit in half early in the second period. Gentry Zollars sent a breakout pass to Anthony DeGrazia, who skated into the left slot before putting the puck on the stick of Anthony Cosmano where he found the back of the net from the right slot at 2:41 of the middle stanza. The Panthers closed out the contest with three unanswered goals, all coming in the final seven minutes of the second stanza.
Rookie Chris Brown blasted a shot from the point that sailed into the back of the net for his third goal of the campaign at the 13:46 mark and classmate Chris Steele followed just 31 seconds later with his third tally of the season at 14:17 for a 4-1 bulge. Middlebury capped the scoring when Knelman located Townsend for his second goal of the night and eighth of the year with 3:37 remaining in the second period for a 5-1 advantage.
Kevin Bendel stopped 25 of 30 shots in the first two periods for the Beacons, before yielding to Ryan Donovan, who turned away all eight shots on net in the final period. Sophomore goaltender John Yanchek earned the victory for the Panthers with 26 saves.
BOX SCORE
