Amherst, MA –In an ACHA matchup for Eagle mascot supremacy, Florida Gulf Coast would and Boston College would battle to begin the final day of the Veteran’s Day weekend tournament. Ty Lasker would break open the scoresheet putting home a feed from his linemates Bryan Beard and Dylan Cantwell to take a 1-0 lead for the FGCU Eagles. The FGCU top line would certainly not be done for the day after starting the scoring.
To start the middle frame, Lasker would beat BC Eagles netminder Noah Spiez again on a feed from Cantwell. Matt Salera was also credited with an assist on the play that extended the FGCU lead to 2-0. FGCU would again add to their lead in the middle frame as Colton Howard would take a feed from Lasker (3rd point of the night) and blow one past Spiesz. Salera also picked up his second helper of the period. Riding the high of 3 unanswered goals, FGCU would get a little antsy and took three straight penalties. On the 3rd powerplay opportunity, Michael Nygaard received a beautiful pass from Tabor Smith and found Ryan Farrow above the top of the circle who would finally sneak one past FGCU’s Jordan Bustard to cut the lead to 3-1. Unfortunately just over a minute later the FGCU Eagles would again extend the lead to 3 as Dylan Cantwell (3rd point of the night) ripped one home past Spiesz on a feed from Laskey (4th point). Salera would also tally his third helper of the game to help extend the FGCU lead to 4-1.
The only concern for the FGCU Eagles entering the third period would be if they could stay out of the penalty box after taking four penalties to BC’s one. Things would start off great for FGCU as they would draw the first penalty of the 3rd to go on their second powerplay but were unable to convert. After killing off the penalty, the Eagles from Chestnut Hill would storm back with an unassisted beauty from Michael Nygaard to cut the lead in half. A few minutes later Lindy Vicari would take a feed from Jimmy Airoldi and beat Bustard to bring the deficit to 1. Steven Schahwenk also was credited with an assist on the play that had brought BC within striking range. Carrying the momentum of a 2 goal swing, BC drew another FGCU penalty as part of a sequence of trading penalties twice a side. While the respective powerplays for both teams provided a flurry of offense that was all turned away by Bustard. After failing to use the momentum to tie the game BC and FGCU would trade penalties and powerplay opportunities, but no additional offense would prevail.
With only a few minutes remaining in the final frame, Dylan Cantwell would pick up his fourth point on the night and provide the dagger in the BC heart to take a 2 goal lead. The FGCU would rally off of the emotions of the security goal to draw a penalty and go on yet another powerplay. This time, the ever dangerous FGCU powerplay would finally overcome their struggles as Dawson Zahorina would fire one in from the point on a feed from his D-partner Mike Haskins and extend the lead to 6-3. Beard would also pick up his second assist of the night to bring his line’s point total to 10 on the night. Both teams would again trade penalties, but the score would remain the same and FGCU would pick up their first victory of the weekend.