This weekend, the University of Delaware Blue Hens matched against the #10 team in the ACHA, the Stony Brook Seawolves. Both games took place in Stony Brook, NY on Saturday and Sunday. Sadly, the weekend ended in losses for the boys.
Saturday’s puck drop was at 8:30pm at the Rinx in New York. The starting line-up for the Blue Hens included forwards #13 Chris Mazzella, #22 Mike Nisky, and #21 Mike Redgate, defensive players #24 Mike Zidansek, #5 Harrison Good and #30 Stephen East in the goal. The team was off to a good start, not breaking defense but failing to make moves to score goals. With 7:12 minutes left in the first period, Stony Brook found the back of the net, making the score 1-0. Delaware was unable to retaliate, and the first period closed with the Seawolves in the lead. Into the second period, Delaware managed to maintain the score until the very end of the second period, where with five minutes left, Stony Brook scored two back-two-back goals two minutes apart. The second period concluded at the Seawolves were in the lead, 3-0. In the third period, Stony Brook scored another goal at 6:48, finalizing the score at 4-0 and giving the win to the Seawolves. Harrison Chuma shared his thoughts on Saturday’s game, “We played pretty well against the #10 team in the ACHA, but as a team, we need to work on defensive zone recovery. When we play these more skilled teams, they’re going to transition really quickly; if we have a turnover, they’re going to turn that into a scoring opportunity very quickly and we need to adapt to combat this.” We prompted Chuma how he thought the team could improve their play to which he responded, “Our mistakes are highlighted against teams that capitalize on the smallest opportunities so I think we know what we need to work on and can hopefully help out East in the future by allowing fewer shots and less sustained pressure in the D zone.”
On Sunday, the lineup included forwards #8 Cam Piorkowski, #28 Cole Zucker, #26 Brian Ostrander, with #24 Mike Zidansek and #5 Harrison Good on defense and #30 Stephen East. Early on in the first period, #15 Shane Mullin capitalized off of an assist from #9 Greg Jandoli, putting Delaware in the lead, 1-0.The Blue Hens maintained the lead into the second period. With 15:59 remaining in the second period, Stony Brook scored a power play goal, tying the game at 1. The second period concluded with no further goals. In the third period, Stony Brook made two back-to-back goals at 8 minutes. Stony Brook ended the game with a fourth goal on an empty net. The final score was 4-1. Despite the loss, Cam Piorkowski emphasized what the team had done well stating, “Coming in the weekend, we wanted to bounce back after a tough split last weekend. Our goals were to play a complete three-period game, which we hadn’t done yet, and to stay out of the box. In both games this weekend I think we finally put together a couple of three-period efforts and we kept our penalties to a minimum. We dominated many stretches of both games, but unfortunately we couldn’t capitalize on our chances.” When asked what the team wanted to do better for this upcoming weekend, Piorkowski said, “Going forward to this coming weekend, we’re going to look to keep giving a complete effort each game and start capitalizing on our chances.”
Next weekend, the boys will match up against Mercyhurst University and the University of Buffalo at the 2nd Annual Buffalo Meltdown Tournament. Be sure to keep up with how the team does, and be on the lookout for which game they will be participating in on Sunday afternoon.
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Written By: Daniella Fioretti
