Quinnipiac University
Northeastern
QU Men's Ice Hockey's Landon Smith's Three-Point Night Leads Bobcats To 4-3 Win Against Northeastern
11/2/2014 12:00:00 AM | Men's Ice Hockey
HAMDEN, Conn. - The Quinnipiac University men's ice hockey team swept Northeastern with a 4-3 victory in the second game of a two-game series at High Point Solutions Arena at the TD Bank Sports Center in Hamden, Conn. The Bobcats improve to 3-2-1 overall while Northeastern drops to 0-6-0 on the year.
Soren Jonzzon (Mountain View, California) scored the gamer-winner for the Bobcats with his first marker of the season. Freshman Landon Smith (Greenwood Village, Colorado) had a hand in three Bobcats' goals with two goals and an assist in the second period, while classmate Andrew Taverner (Edmonton, Alberta) scored his second goal of the series. Michael Garteig (Prince George, British Columbia) picked up his second-straight victory with a 23-save performance.
Sam Anas (Potomac, Maryland) had two assists - including his 50th career point in his 46th career game - making him the third-fastestQuinnipiac player to reach the half-century mark in the Bobcats' Division I era. Brian Herbert (1998-99) reached the mark in 32 career games while Bryan Leitch hit 50 points in his 45th career game in 2004-05.
Northeastern's Mike Szmatula gave the Huskies a 2-0 lead witih a pair of goals in the first period, both coming off of rebounds with his second on the power play. Szmatula's clean-up duty padded Northeastern's lead heading into a wild second period.
The second frame featured four goal and 13 penalties. Quinnipaic freshman Landon Smith (Greenwood Village, Colorado) had a hand in all three Bobcat goals, scoring twice and assisting on the game-tying goal to end the second period. Smith's first goal came just 23 seconds into period when a neutral zone turnover by Northeastern created a 3-on-2 for Quinnipiac with point leaders Sam Anas (Potomac, Maryland) and Matthew Peca (Petawawa, Ontario) breaking through the Huskies' defensive zone before handing the puck to Smith who wired a shot around NU's Derick Roy to put Quinnipiac on the board.
Midway through the period, Smith controlled the puck deep before spitting it out to classmate Tanner MacMaster (Calgary, Alberta) in the face-off circle to the left of Roy. MacMaster threaded the needle to Anas who popped a shot off of Roy's left pad before Smith cleaned up the loose puck to tie the game at 2-2.
Northeastern answered thirty-one seconds later as Ryan Rosenthal took a pass from Dalen Hedges to give the Huskies a 3-2 lead. With just over a minute left in the period, Andrew Taverner (Edmonton, Alberta) scored his second goal of the series, and third of the year. Bo Pieper (Roseville, Minnesota) possessed the puck in the corner and fed Landon Smith along the boards. Smith saucered a pass into the crease in front of Roy where Taverner was able to bang it home to knot it at 3-3.
Coming out of the second intermission, Jonzzon gave Quinnipiac a 4-3 lead with his first goal of the season just under five minutes into the period. After Alex Barron (Glendora, California) carried the puck deep into the Huskies' zone and put the puck on Jonzzon's tape, Jonzzon directed the puck on goal before crashing the net and poking the puck between Roy's pads to give the Bobcats a one-goal lead.
Quinnipiac opens ECAC Hockey play next weekend when it hosts national-ranked Colgate and Cornell on Nov. 7-8, respectively, at High Point Solutions Arena at the TD Bank Sports Center.
