Ice Hockey Falls at Conference Leader Plymouth State

Plymouth, N.H. – Senior Kyle Greco (Hillside, Ill.) scored a first-period hat trick Saturday evening as Plymouth State University registered a 7-1 victory over Framingham State University in Massachusetts State Collegiate Athletic Conference (MASCAC) men's ice hockey action at Hanaway Rink.

Greco helped the Panthers to a 4-0 first-period advantage which grew to 7-0 in the second and put the game out of reach.  PSU out-shot the visitors 49-16 en route to its seventh straight MASCAC win and held steady in first place, improving to 7-1 in conference play and 11-4 overall.

Framingham State got a third-period goal from junior Peter Baldwin (Port Williams, N.S.) to break up the shutout but the Rams fell to 2-11 overall and 0-8 in the MASCAC.

Greco scored the first two goals of the game in the first eight minutes of play.  He converted a pass from behind the net by senior Richie Zobak (Evergreen Park, Ill.) three minutes in, and tapped home a back-handed centering pass from freshman Andrew Wigg (Lantz, N.S.) at 7:35 for the 2-0 lead.  Freshman Tieg Alward (Hampden, Maine) scored at 13:57 on a short-handed breakaway for his first career goal, making a move and lifting a backhander over the goalie; and Greco finished off his hat trick with 1:19 left in the period, collecting a loose puck off a rebound on the right doorstep and finishing off his team-leading ninth goal of the season.

PSU got its only power play goal of the night midway through the second period as junior Phil Arnone (Litchfield, N.H.) put home a rebound off a shot by senior Kyle Wieland (Hampden, Maine). Junior Travis Stevens (Montclair, Calif.) tipped in a shot from the point by junior Dave Walters (Ottawa, Ont.) three minutes later for his seventh of the season to make it 6-0, and Weiland rounded out PSU's scoring when he brought the puck out from behind the net and stuffed it in under the goaltender.

Both teams changed goalies for the third period. PSU senior Jack Astedt (Angelholm, Sweden) sat down after stopping all six shots he faced in 40 minutes, giving way to sophomore Zac Enstrom (South Windsor, Conn.), who made nine saves on 10 shots in his career debut. Junior Nick Cafrelli (San Jose, Calif.) made 37 saves in two periods for Framingham State and classmate Herbert Kyles (Overland Park, Kansas) stopped all five shots he faced in the third period.

 After playing three straight home games, PSU hits the road next week with MASCAC games at Salem State University on Thursday and Worcester State University on Saturday.  Framingham State returns home to host Westfield State University in a conference match-up on Tuesday.

Release courtesy of PSU Sports Information.