Amherst, MA – In the most anticipated game of the weekend, the UMass Amherst ACHA team faced off against the Northeastern Huskies ACHA team that ended their campaign early last season. Both teams had circled this matchup on their calendars the moment the schedule came out. Northeastern wanted to hand the Minutemen another defeat at home to assert that their previous victory was not a fluke, but an assertion of their status as the best ACHA DII team in the Bay State. UMass came into the game trying to hold down their home turf and exact revenge against the team that ended their hopes for a national championship. Needless to say, there was no fabricated excitement from either side prior to the afternoon matchup.
UMass came out strong in the first period dominating the shot department and attacking zone time in the period. With 1:14 remaining in the opening frame, Matt Lucy took a stretch pass from fellow classmate Connor Power and dangled past Northeastern netminder Ryan Shea to open the scoring. Lucy was also called for an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty after the whistle that would put the Minutemen on their first penalty kill of the day.
Northeastern was unable to capitalize on their first power play opportunity of the day as they could not generate many chances during the final 1:14 and the 46 seconds of carry-over into the second. UMass would provide the second entry on the scoresheet as Shamus Lombard buried home a feed from Daniel O’Leary to double the lead only 5:21 into the period. Jeff MacDonald also picked up an assist on the play. Northeastern would cut the lead in half as Mateusz Koziel rifled home a feed from John Treppo only 1:10 later. After a stretch of back and forth action, Northeastern would be unable to tie the game after failing to execute on three powerplay opportunities . With one opportunity cut short on their own penalty, the Huskies were unable to generate many “Grade-A” scoring chances and netminder Rob Kornack remained strong in net.
After about a ten minute stretch of back and forth action to begin the final frame, the play started to get chippy as both sides felt the heat of the rivalry and the intensity of the close game increase. Northeastern’s Noah Traylor would take a lucky bounce into the neutral zone and execute a perfect two-on-one break to slide a pass over to Jimmy Aube who would put one home past Kornack and tie the game with 10:19 remaining. The energy and momentum of the game seemed to have swung into the favor of the Huskies as they had battled back from being outplayed in the first and a 2-0 deficit to tie the game. With 5:41 remaining in the final frame, Northeastern would take a heartbraking penalty that would put the Minutemen on the powerplay. As the dangerous UMass powerplay went to work, Markie Cambell would take a feed from Matt Poulin on the half-wall on his way to curl towards the net and pick his corner over Shea’s blocker and take a 3-2 UMass lead. Jeff MacDonald would pick up his second helper of the night on the go-ahead goal by Campbell. In a frantic final 4 minutes, the Minutemen were able to fend off a ferocious and desperate Husky attack to hold onto the lead and complete the back-to-back Veteran’s Day tournament sweep.