Ephs defeat Tufts 4-2 in Season Opener
Brett Haraguchi '09
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. - The Williams College men's hockey team used a pair of goals in the opening and closing periods to knock off visiting conference foe Tufts 4-2 in the season opener Friday night. The win marks a promising start for the 1-0 Ephs, who look to improve off of the 2007-2008 campaign where they posted a 9-12-4 record, while Tufts falls to 0-1.
The Ephs more than doubled the Jumbos shot total (Williams: 53, Tufts: 24), while the Jumbos dominated in penalty time (Williams: 10 minutes , Tufts: 24 minutes) in the loss.
"We learned a lot about ourselves tonight." Remarked Eph head coah Bill Kangas, "We didn't play our best hockey for the whole game, but we played a lot smarter in the third and that proved to be the difference maker."
The Ephs offense was led by committee with Eph junior captain Alex Smigelski spearheading the charge with a goal and assist, while Brett Haraguchi, Justin Troiani, and Sasha Voloshin each contributed a goal. Marc Pulde turned away 22 shots in goal for the Ephs.
Williams put the pressure on the visiting Jumbos from the games opening faceoff and pushed play towards the Tufts net. The Ephs nearly got on the board in both the fourteenth and ninth minutes but shots from Octavian Jordan and Stephen Maier both narrowly ricocheted off of the bar.
However, the Ephs would not be denied and broke through the Tufts defense under four minutes later when Haraguchi knocked in a put back in front of the Jumbo net for the unassisted score and the 1-0 advantage.
Tufts responded in the 17th minute when Nick Resor converted a Lindsay Walker pass to tie things back up, but it proved to be short lived as Troiani would score less than a minute later to restore the Eph advantage and send Williams into the intermission up 2-1.
The Jumbos regrouped during the break and began to challenge the Ephs up and down the ice in the second period. This new found aggression paid dividends for Tufts with just five minutes remaining, when Joe Milo recovered from a fumbled puck and slipped an improbable twisting shot past Pulde to knot things back up at 2-2.
The Ephs regained their swagger in third, and pulled ahead off of a point blank glove side winner by Voloshin just 7:08 into the period. The score would prove to be the game-winner, although Smigelski would take advantage of an empty net late in the contest and add an insurance goal to settle the scoring at 4-2.
The Ephs don't have long to dwell on their victory, however, as they play host to NESCAC foe Connecticut College tomorrow, November 22nd, at 3:00 PM.
