NORTHFIELD, Vt. – Freshman forward William Pelletier (St. Jean Chrysotome, Quebec) tallied his first career hat trick to lead the Norwich University men's ice hockey team to a dominant 5-0 victory over the Milwaukee School of Engineering on Friday night at Kreitzberg Arena.

The Cadets (8-1-2, 6-0-1 ECAC East) advanced to the Northfield Savings Bank Holiday Tournament Championship game with the victory and will meet No. 11-ranked Amherst at 7 p.m. in a showdown between former ECAC East/NESCAC Interlock foes.

Pelletier notched a natural hat trick, scoring the Cadets first three goals of the game and one in each period to pace the Norwich offense in its first game since Dec. 7.

Pelletier opened the scoring at the 18:15 mark of the first period when he tipped an initial shot from Alec Thieda (Rochester Hills, Mich.) out of midair past MSOE starting goalie Nick Kohn to give Norwich a lead that it would never relinquish. Freshman forward Tyler Piacentini (South Weymouth, Mass.) also notched an assist on the goal after dropping the puck back to Thieda from the high slot.

He pushed the lead to 2-0 just before the midway point of the second period with a tremendous individual effort to weave through three MSOE defenders before deking Kohn and shoveling the puck past the sprawled out MSOE goalie on the backhand. Trevor Stewart (Mission, Texas) and Brian Rowland (Waltham, Mass.) picked up assists on the goal.

Pelletier completed the hat trick with a power play goal midway through the third period beating Kohn low glove side off assists from Ryan Whitell (Calgary, Alberta) and Zac Fulton (East Thetford, Vt.).

Senior forward Travis Janke (Swift Current, Saskatchewan) added two more goals to cap off the night. Senior forward Chris Duszynski (Okotoks, Alberta) notched assists on both goals, while Stewart and Whitell each added their second assists of the night as well.

Norwich outshot MSOE 47-3 in the game and finished 3-for-5 on the power play. Junior goalie Matic Marinsek (Ljubljana, Slovenia) stopped all three shots he faced to pick up his seventh win of the season and his second shutout.  

MSOE will face Plymouth State at 4 p.m. in the consolation game after Amherst edged the Panthers 4-3 in Friday's opener.  

-CADETS-