Video Highlights by Tanner Acebo, NU Sports Information

NORTHFIELD, Vt. – The Norwich University men's ice hockey team rebounded from its first loss of the season in a big way on Friday night, doubling up Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) East rival UMass Boston 6-3 at Kreitzberg Arena to hand the Beacons their first league loss.

The Cadets (12-1-1, 8-0-0 ECAC East) stayed perfect in league play after building up a 4-0 lead through two periods and then holding on for the 6-3 win in the third period. Sophomore forward Anthony Flaherty (South Boston, Mass.) scored twice, while classmate Trevor Stewart (Denver, Colo.) added a goal and an assist to lead the Norwich offense on the night.

Norwich came out of the gates flying, completely dominating the possession and shots on goal, and outshooting the Beacons 8-1 halfway through the first period. The Cadets finally got on the board at the 10:51 mark of the period when Flaherty slid in and pounded a rebound into the back of the net off assists from Dmitry Ermakov (Columbia, Md.) and Nick Pichette (Massena, N.Y.).

Ermakov entered the zone with the puck and slid a pass back to a streaking Pichette. Pichette made a nice move to cut through the UMass Boston defense and he got a shot on goal on his backhand that was turned aside. Ermakov also took a swipe at the puck before Flaherty came crashing in and slipped the puck into the right corner of the net for his fifth goal of the season.

The Cadets made it 2-0 on the power play at the 15:40 mark when Corey Hale ripped a slap shot from the blue line that evaded UMass Boston starting goalie Zach Andrews and found the twine off assists from Brendan Boyce (St. Albans, Vt.) and Tyler Piacentini (South Weymouth, Mass.).

Norwich wasted little time extending its lead to 3-0 at the start of the second period as Austin Surowiec (Louisville, Ky.) kissed a slap shot off the inside of the right post and into the back of the net off assists from Stewart and Cody Smith (Hudson, Mass.).

Stewart made it 4-0 at the 8:10 mark of the period when an UMass Boston defender lost the puck at the blue line springing Stewart in alone on a breakaway. Stewart skated and picked the left corner of the net after Andrews left the whole side of the net open for his second goal of the season. UMass Boston coach Peter Belisle pulled Andrews after the fourth goal in favor of Billy Faust.

UMass Boston (10-2-1, 6-1-0 ECAC East) got on the board at the 1:56 mark of the third period with a pretty tic-tac-toe passing play set up by Stephen Buco and Tyler Bishop that resulted in an easy tap in goal for Peter MacIntyre for his fifth of the season.

The Beacons cut the deficit in half to 4-2 at the 10:32 mark when John Houston ripped a shot from the half boards at a bad angle that squeaked through NU sophomore goalie Ty Reichenbach's (Billings, Mont.) pads for an unassisted tally.

Flaherty gave NU a three-goal lead again at the 14:12 mark of the third period when he scored his second of the night and sixth of the season off assists from Nevin Lawler (Fitchburg, Mass.) and Bryce Currier (Essex Junction, Vt.).

UMass Boston continued to fight until the end though as Michael Kuhn needed just 12 seconds of power play time to make the Cadets pay as he scored off assists from MacIntyre and Buco to make it 5-3 at the 16:14 mark.

However, that's as close as UMass Boston would get as sophomore forward Paul Russell (Andover, Mass.) added an empty netter after he chased down a long clearing attempt by Boyce for his third goal of the season. 

Reichenbach made 23 saves to improve to 7-0-1 on the season. Andrews made 13 saves on 17 shots to take the loss for the Beacons. Faust came on and stopped 12 of 13.

Norwich finished with 12 different players on the score sheet and didn't get a single point from its top line of William Pelletier, Dean Niezgoda and Kevin Salvucci for the first time in 10 games.

The Cadets close out its three-game week against all top-10 ranked opponents with a showdown with longtime ECAC East rival Babson (12-1-1, 7-0-0 ECAC East on Saturday at 4 p.m. The two schools have met in the ECAC East Championship the last two seasons with Babson winning both times by scores of 2-1.

-CADETS-