Wildcats split weekend series

Trevor van Riemsdyk dished out four assists earning most valuable player honors as the fourth-ranked University of New Hampshire men’s hockey team captured a convincing 6-2 win over Hockey East foe Merrimack College on Saturday night in the annual Battle for the RiverStone Cup XII at Verizon Wireless Arena.

This win comes after the Wildcats fell to Merrimack College 3-2 on Friday night, in a game played at Lawler Arena in North Andover, Mass.

With Saturday’s win UNH improves to 15-6-2 overall with a 10-5-1 mark in Hockey East. The Warriors even out at 10-10-5, 8-6-2 in league play. The Wildcats match their 2011-12 win total with the victory.

In addition to van Riemsdyk, ten different Wildcats factored in the scoring with four players with multi-point efforts and two netting their first collegiate goals: Austin Block (1g, 1a), Connor Hardowa (1g, 1a), van Riemsdky (4a), Grayson Downing (1g, 2a), Dan Correale (first collegiate goal) and Collin MacDonald (first collegiate goal).

With UNH leading 1-0 entering the second period, Merrimack evened the score 4:32 into the stanza with a goal from Ben Bahe. Rhett Bly and Kyle Singleton assisted on the equalizer. The ‘Cats responded with three goals in the final 7:37 of the second period including one in the final 1:02 of the frame to take control of the game. Hardowa scored the first of those three tallies, a power play goal, on a one-timer from the left circle. Downing and van Riemsdyk assisted on the go-ahead goal. A pair of freshmen netted the third and fourth goals for the Wildcats as Correale and MacDonald scored at 18:58 and 19:59.8 respectively. Correale’s goal, which was assisted by Downing and Block, came on the rebound of an Austin Block shot. MacDonald’s was a fast-paced transition goal setup in the whining seconds by van Riemsdyk and John Henrion.

UNH added to its lead as Dalton Speelman scored on a breakout goal at 8:51 with assists from Matt Willows and Brett Kostolansky to make it 5-1. 

The Warriors responded to cut it to 5-2 as Dan Kolomatis scored with assists from Vinny Scotti and Connor Toomey at the 10:07 mark of the frame. Downing closed out scoring with a goal from the right slot at 18:21 of the period.

Sophomore netminder Casey DeSmith made 35 saves including 16 in the second period. He improved to 14-4-2 on the season. His counterpart from MC, Sam Marotta, made 22 saves and fell to 7-5-3.

Merrimack held a 37-28 shot advantage for the game, powered by a 17-11 edge in the second period. 

UNH went 2-3 on the power play, while the Warriors were 0-4 on their extra-man opportunities.

UNH heads south on Friday, Feb. 1 to take on Northeastern University. The Wildcats next home game is Saturday, Feb. 2 against Merrimack.