RIVER FALLS, Wis. — The UW-River Falls men's hockey team defeated the College of St. Scholastica 5-4 Saturday evening at Hunt Arena.
The Falcons, now 9-6 overall, improve their record at Hunt Arena to 6-3 on the season.
Five different Falcons found the back of the net during the win during the back-and-forth affair while
Dylan Smith and
Hunter Jones both had two assists. Each team scored a power play goals while shots on net were deadlocked at 25 apiece.
The Falcons held the Saints to just five shots on goal in the first period while taking a 1-0 lead at 11:13 as an
Ethan Lindahl shot from the side wall through traffic snuck past CSS goaltender Eino Rissanen.
Two goals were scored in the opening 33 seconds of the second period, with the Saints tying the game in the opening shift but 24 seconds after
Alex Atwill and the Falcons regained the lead. 13 minutes passed before a trio of goals were scored to close out the second. Just as the Falcons looked to gain more momentum with a
Max Collette power play tally to lead 3-1, the Saints answered under a minute later to trim the Falcon lead back to one goal. It didn't phase the Falcons though as late in the period
Burke Simpson scored to award UWRF a 4-2 lead heading into the final 20 minutes of regulation.
The trend of exchanging goals continued in the third period. Four and a half minutes in,
Hunter Jones found
Anthony Vidrick for his first goal as a Falcon to extend UWRF's lead to 5-2, but two minutes later CSS answered with a power play goal to cut the Falcons' lead back to two.
With just over five minutes left in regulation, the Saints' Tristan Shewchuk blocked a shot and went on a breakaway, scoring to come within a goal of the Falcons, down 5-4. UWRF held on for the rest of the game despite the Saints outshooting the Falcons 14-4 in the final period, pulling their goaltender late in the game to no avail.
Brennan Boynton made 21 saves to earn the win in goal.
UWRF remains in nonconference play next weekend, hitting the road to face St. Olaf College and Saint Mary's University Jan. 17-18.
