Quinnipiac University
Merrimack
No. 12 Quinnipiac Men's Ice Hockey Falls To No. 20 Merrimack, 3-1
1/17/2015 12:00:00 AM | Men's Ice Hockey
HAMDEN, Conn. - Nationally-ranked No. 12 Quinnipiac men's ice hockey lost to No. 20 Merrimack, 3-1, at High Point Solutions Arena at the TD Bank Sports Center to drop to 15-8-1 overall while Merrimack improves to 13-6-2 on the year.
Sam Anas (Potomac, Maryland) scored his third goal of the weekend, and team-leading 13th of the season, with assists credited to Travis St. Denis (Trail, British Columbia) and Matthew Peca (Petawawa, Ontario). For Peca, he now has three goals and seven assists for 10 points in the first eight games of the second half. In goal, freshman Sean Lawrence (Granite Bay, California) stopped 18 of Merrimack's 21 shots on goal.
Merrimack freshman Brett Seney scored the first of his two goals midway through the first period. Chris LeBlanc handled the puck along the goal line after winning a battle in the corner before firing a shot on Lawrence that banged off the post and bounced into the crease. Seney was crashing the net and was able to collect the puck after his hit him in the foot and slide it past a diving Lawrence to put Merrimack on the board, 1-0.
Moments later, Quinnipiac tied the game with a power play goal by Anas. St. Denis held the puck on the far-side of the ice before blasting a shot on goal. The deflection landed on Peca's stick on the opposite side of the ice before he stepped between the face-off circles and drew two defenders. He then fed the puck to Anas on the goal line, who wristed a shot on net that tucked just under the cross bar to tie the game.
Early in the third, Seney gave Merrimack the lead with his team-leading 13th goal of the year. Merrimack had just killed Seney's penalty and he stepped back on the ice, he was immediately part of a two-on-one with Clayton Jardine, which resulted in him getting the puck in the right face-off circle. He flipped the puck on goal where it deflected off a stick and past Lawrence to give Merrimack a 2-1 lead.
Merrimack added its third goal with a little more than two minutes to play. On the power play, Hampus Gustaffson carried the puck through the Bobcats' defensive zone and threw a shot on goal that found daylight and beat the Bobcats' freshman goal to seal Merrimack's 3-1 win.
Quinnipiac will have next weekend off and will return to action with a pair of ECAC Hockey match-ups at Brown on Friday, Jan. 30 and at Yale on Saturday, Jan. 31.
