Northeastern Takes Down UNH 2-1

By Logan Reever 11-17-14

It was a critical weekend for Northeastern and the Hockey East.  The Huskies had a 0-7-1 record coming into Friday,and stood as one of the teams separated  by one point in the fourth through eleventh places.

Northeastern wasn’t able to capitalize on Friday night when they went to Durham to take on the New Hampshire Wildcats (4-5) . Losing in a  5-3 effort after climbing back from a 3-0 deficit. On Saturday night, it was Northeastern’s turn to play host to the Wildcats.

The goaltenders came to play at the start. Giving up no ground and more importantly, no goals with UNH’s Adam Clark saving 11 shots and Clay Witt grabbing eight saves for the Huskies in the first. Witt played his second straight game since being out for six games with an upper body injury. Witt shined in the 2nd period with an incredible 18 saves. UNH had three power plays in the period to Northeastern’s one. It kept to be scoreless in the third when the offense came to town. UNH’s Kyle Smith scored off the assist from Matt Willows to give the Wildcats the lead. But just a minute later with 16:38 left, Sophomore Ryan Rosenthal scored for the Huskies to draw even. Then a few minutes following that, with 11:39 to go, the Huskies put it behind the net again. This time by the Freshman Nolan Stevens, his first collegiate goal. Immediately a defensive lockdown became a shootout at Matthews Arena. That goal by Stevens would be the deciding factor.

Clay Witt was the unsung hero of the game, in his second consecutive night of action following the six games of being sidelined. Witt was given one star for the game. The second went to Nolan Stevens and the third to Kyle Smith.

The win gave the Huskies their first of the season. Northeastern is now 1-4-1 in Hockey East play while New Hampshire falls to 1-2 in league play. The Huskies got the monkey off their back to say the least and turn their attention to a Merrimack who they play back to back nights starting on Friday when they play the road team for the first matchup and back home at Matthews Arena on Saturday. Meanwhile, the Wildcats get to head back home for their matchup against Providence also on Friday. An interesting point as well is that with the win against UNH, Northeastern is now two wins away from reaching 500 at Matthews Arena (498-477-70).