Westfield’s Jackson Leef (back to camera) battles for the puck during heated third period action. (Photo by Cody Goldman)
WESTFIELD – Plymouth State University captured a share of the Massachusetts State Collegiate Athletic Conference (MASCAC) men’s ice hockey regular season championship by defeating Westfield State University, 5-2, on Tuesday, Feb. 25.
Plymouth shares title with Salem State as both teams finish the MASCAC regular season with 11-5-2 records. Salem earns the No. 1 seed for the MASCAC postseason tournament as it owned a 2-0-1 regular season record vs. Plymouth. Salem and Plymouth have first round byes in the six-team conference tournament and will host semifinal games next Tuesday.
Westfield State, 10-7-1, is the No. 3 seed and hosts No. 6 seed Worcester State on Saturday at 5:35 p.m. in the quarterfinals.
Westfield stunned Plymouth by jumping out to a 2-0 lead in the opening three minutes. Freshman forward Maxime Richard scored 33 seconds into the game and freshman Jackson Leef tallied a power play goal 17:03 showing in the clock.
Freshman forward Maxime Richard rifles one of Westfield’s five shots on goal during the third period. (Photo by Cody Goldman)
But the Panthers shut down the Owls the remainder of the game, especially in the third period when they owned a 16-5 shots advantage.
Plymouth sliced the lead in half on Josh Woody’s goal with 42 seconds remaining in the first period. The Panthers scored two second-stanza goals to take a 3-2 lead. Tord Thoresen tied the score 12:26 into the second period and Erik Strom scored the game-winning goal with 2:44 left in the period.
Plymouth scored two goals in the game’s closing minutes. Mike Freitag clinched the key road victory by stealing the puck and scoring an unassisted goal with 1:33 remaining. Zach Fox added an empty net goal with 1:08 remaining.
Plymouth goalie Gordon Ceasar was credited with 33 saves while Westfield netminder Ian Perrier had 34 stops.
