Ephs defeat #4 Manhattanville 5-1
PURCHASE, New York - The Williams College men's hockey team entered Sunday knowing that they were about to face their toughest challenge of the young season and responded with their best performance to date, earning a 5-1 victory over ECAC West leading Manhattanville College at Playland Rink.
The Ephs improve to 3-0-1 on the season, having won all three of their pre-holiday away games with four straight homes games remaining before the season intermission. The Valiants, who entered the weekend ranked #4 in NCAA Division 3 standings, have now dropped two straight and fall to 5-2.
"We knew coming in that they were a very quality team and that they would be tough -- especially playing at their place." noted Eph coach Bill Kangas, "But we were committed to defense and we improved a lot. Where last night we struggled defensively, we definitely played on both ends of the ice tonight."
For the second straight game the Ephs surrendered more shots then they themselves mustered, but another strong effort in the net from Williams goaltender Ryan Purdy (44 saves) and an efficient power play exploiting attack proved to be too much for the highly touted Valiants.
Brian Malcoff notched the opening score of the game and assisted on the next just under two minutes later to spark the Ephs, while Alex Smigelski added a pair of goals and an assist of his own to pace the Williams attack.
The Ephs jumped out to a three score lead in the first period due in large part to the opportunistic play of Malcoff and the Williams offense. After a Manhattanville penalty left the Valiants shorthanded, the Ephs seized the opportunity and notched two quick scores, one from Malcoff the other from Smigelski, on the power play to go up 2-0 just 5:21 into the game.
While both teams were penalized twelve times in the match, the Valiants spent 35 minutes in the box to Williams' 24 minutes -- a statistic that weighed heavily on the outcome.
The Ephs' Matt Masucci would add an additional score before the period was through off of a Justin Troiani assist, the first of his two in the match, to go into the first intermission leading the Valiants 3-0.
Manhattanville would record their lone score of the contest in the second period, when Mickey Lang teamed up with Dillion O'Hara and Niklas Berntsson to notch a power play score of their own and cut the lead to two at 3-1 after the second intermission.
However, that was as close as the Valiants would come as Williams would get a pair of additional insurance scores from Smigelski and Ben Contini in a period where Williams was outshot 19 to 7 to round out the scoring and end the game with a Eph 5-1 victory.
"Beating a team like this is huge, especially for us as a team that wants to get better each week. We need games like this to continue to get better."
The Ephs will return to action next Friday, December 4th when they play host to conference foe New England College. That game is scheduled for a 7:00 PM opening faceoff.
