Seahawks stave off Scots for first CCC win

WENHAM, Mass.—A closely contested first half gave way to a shutdown defensive effort for Salve Regina in the second half, as the Seahawks pulled away from host Gordon for a 12-9 victory at the Brigham Athletic Complex. Salve Regina held Gordon to two second-half scores and gutted out a pivotal Commonwealth Coast Conference game on Wednesday evening.

The Seahawks bounced back from a tough outing at Endicott and improve to 2-3 on the season. Gordon falls from the high of beating Wentworth on Saturday and drops to 1-1 in the CCC, 4-6 overall.

The first half was a classic back-and-forth battle with neither team ever commanding a firm grasp on momentum. CCC Rookie of the Week Andrew Fera (Cranston, R.I.) opened the scoring in the third minute of regulation on an unassisted strike. Gordon answered right back after the next face-off as Roger Evans (Oxford, Pa.) whipped a shot from nearly 25 yards out.

Eric Backus (Mansfield, Mass.) continued the scoring stretch in the sixth minute with a man-up goal off the assist from Nick LoCicero (Lynbrook, N.Y.). Once again the Fighting Scots drew even a minute later by capitalizing on a man-up opportunity of their own. Michael Utz (Rochester, N.Y.) laced a shot off a Nico Manganiello (Peabody, Mass.) feed and beat the keeper high.

Backus and Sharp Jones (Scituate, Mass.) tallied back-to-back goals from Salve Regina with less than three minutes to play in the first quarter to put the Seahawks up two. Gordon's Evans got one back for the Scots with just 12 seconds remaining in the period, but Salve Regina held a 4-3 lead after one.

Penalties played a large part in the game all night for both teams. Two costly Salve Regina penalties at the end of the first and beginning of the second quarter led two three power-play goals for the Fighting Scots. Ryan Utz (Rochester, N.Y.) scored twice and Matt Dantona (Syosset, N.Y.) one to cap off a 4-0 run and put Gordon up 6-4.

From that moment, Gordon found it tough to score against freshman goalkeeper Matt D'Amore (Duxbury, Mass.). On the other end of the field, Cam Brazill (Ridgewood, N.J.) and Fera's three-goal run helped the Seahawks reclaim the lead in just two minutes time.

Jake Martin (Watertown, Conn.) evened the game at seven goals apiece just before the teams broke for halftime.

The Seahawks scored the first two goals out of the break with both coming in the first two minutes. LoCicero and Jones both added goals next to their name in the stat sheet, including Jones' power play strike off the pass from LoCicero.

Jordan Heckelmann (Colorado Springs, Colo.) got one back for Gordon in the 36^th minute, but Zach Makoske (Shoreham, N.Y.) and LoCicero scored two in a row to give the Seahawks a comfortable 11-8 lead with 3:42 to play in the third. Martin answered back with another man-up score just before the end of the period.

Down two goals, Gordon fired up the offense for the final period. The Fighting Scots churned out 21 attempts in the quarter—eight of them on net—but D'Amore proved to be a wall. Time after time the freshman keeper made a big save to keep Gordon from getting any type of momentum back.

Backus added his third goal of the game for good measure and the Seahawks finished off the Fighting Scots on the road, 12-9.

Gordon outshot the Seahawks 45-35 for the game, but 25 of Salve's attempts were between the pipes compared to only 24 for the Scots. The Fighting Scots also finished off six of 10 man-up chances, while the Seahawks scored three such goals.

The face-offs were virtually split all night with Salve's Jake Gonzalez (Tolland, Conn.) and Gordon's Peter Kovacevic (Pittsburgh, Pa.) each coming up with six ground balls. Frank Russo (Scituate, Mass.) had a strong defensive effort for the Seahawks with four caused turnovers.

D'Amore made 15 saves in the game to pick up a big win. Greenwald had 13 stops in the loss.

Salve Regina returns to Newport on Saturday to take on Nichols, while Gordon travels down to Bristol, R.I. for a showdown with Roger Williams. ​