BOSTON, Mass.- In the second half of a doubleheader at Barry Rink, the Norwich Men's Ice Hockey team took on UMass Boston in their final Little East Conference (LEC) game of 2025, where a third-period comeback forced extra time before the Beacons took the overtime win.

Early on, the Beacons dictated the offensive play, putting several shots on Sami Molu (Toronto, Ont.). After Molu came up with several stops, Norwich responded with opportunities towards UMass Boston netminder Alex Koenig. Late in the period, the Beacons gained momentum from a power play and opened the scoring immediately after the foul expired, with three and a half minutes left, following a faceoff.  

Norwich had a chance to even the score late in the period on a man advantage of their own, but were kept at bay. A second power play carried over into the second period and turned into a five-on-three. But Koenig and the rest of the Beacons' penalty kill kept the Cadets off the board.

Soon after another successful Norwich penalty kill, UMass Boston made it a two-goal game with Jazz Krivtsov cleaning up a rebound. The Cadets attempted to answer on another late man advantage but were turned aside, keeping it a two-goal game at intermission.

After the two sides traded chances to start the third, the Cadet power play came through to cut the Beacon lead in half halfway through the period. After a successful zone entry by Ben van Waterschoot (Whitby, Ont.), Norwich passed it along the top of the zone with Jed Brazo (Homer, N.Y.) and Devon Thibodeau (Pelham, Ont.) playing catch. Thibodeau sent a shot on that got blocked down, but Nick Cordeiro (Mississauga, Ont.) jammed it home to get the Cadets on the board.

Norwich continued to press for the tie and broke through in the final two minutes. After controlling the faceoff after a Beacons' icing, a Thibodeau shot through traffic hit van Waterschoot before finding Zach Ophoven (Burlington, Ont.), who buried the equalizer, sending the game to overtime.

In the extra period, Jude Kurtas buried the game-winner off a rebound to secure the win for UMass Boston.

"Our effort and energy was not great tonight, credit to UMB they out worked us," said Head Coach Dominick Dawes '04. "We battled back in the third and showed a lot of character. But at the end of the day we needed a complete effort."

The Cadets will now return home to host the 2025 edition of the LayerEight Shootout, where they will face Stevenson at 7:00 p.m. on Nov. 28 immediately after the Middlebury vs. Plattsburgh State contest.