Aided by junior co-captain Ken Cleary's hat trick, the hockey team improved to 3-4 after an 8-1 triumph over the Nichols College Bison on Wednesday night at Valley Forum II. The Jumbos outshot Nichols 58-27 en route to their second straight victory, third in their last four games. Nichols drops to 1-6 with the defeat.
"We didn't know a whole lot about them [Nichols College] coming into the game, we knew they had been having a tough time," coach Brian Murphy said. "We did know that they were going to come out and play hard though. This is a tough time to play with the ending of classes, so it was nice to have them at home."
With less than two minutes remaining in the first period, Cleary got the scoring started, netting the first of his three goals in the contest. The goal came on assists from classmate Matt McCarthy and senior Jason Boudrow. Boudrow would score the next Jumbos tally on a power play opportunity with four seconds remaining in the period to put Tufts up 2-0 going into the locker room. Tufts had 21 shots on goal in the first period alone.
"Our goal from the start has been to get better every day and to look forward to the tough challenges," Murphy said.
To begin the second Tufts came out smoking, going up 5-0 before the Bison could put a score up on the board. Senior co-captain John Hurd scored his fifth goal of the season with an assist by sophomore Brian Bailey to increase the Jumbos advantage to 3-0.
Freshman Greg O'Connell added to the lead with a goal assisted by senior Shawn Sullivan and Hurd in the middle of the second frame.
Three minutes later, Sullivan had an unassisted goal on a power play opportunity to give Tufts a greater cushion. This goal forced Nichols to take a time-out.
"Taking a time-out is pretty standard," Murphy said. "It didn't really affect us too much in a negative sense."
Nichols got on the scoreboard with a power play goal by freshman Chris Orlando at 15:09 of the second period to make the score 5-1. Tufts answered quickly with a goal by Bailey less than a minute later to restore the five-goal lead. McCarthy had his second assist of the night by the goal from Bailey. Tufts headed into the locker room after two periods up 6-1.
The third period belonged to Cleary as he scored two more goals to give him his hat trick. His second goal came early in the third. Junior Pat Walsh had two assists in the game, his second coming on a pass to Cleary at 16:01 when both teams were playing shorthanded.
"Kenny is a very good player and scored around 20 goals last year, so this is not something that is unexpected from him to have a big game," Murphy said. "With every game many kids on the team have a potential to have a big game here or there."
Freshman Issa Azat earned his first collegiate victory with 26 stops in the Jumbo net in a game that did not lack offense. Seven Jumbos had multiple point games.
"As a whole, I think we came out and did what we needed to do, we got the puck down low and played our style of hockey," Azat said. "We were a little slow to start, but after we got our feet, we really played a great game."
"I think every defensive pairing played well together. There weren't too many times when we were outnumbered coming back on defense," he added. "The wings and centers were always back checking hard and talking with the defense. We just played solid 'D' all around."
The Jumbos travel to Connecticut College to face the Camels tomorrow night at 7:00. Last year Tufts edged out the Camels, 5-4.
"This weekend is going to be a challenge because [Conn College] has a deceiving record, losing a few one goal games," Murphy said of the Camels' 1-6 mark. "This is our first NESCAC game so it's crucial to get those first few points."
"This team has a chance to be a great team, but we are not there yet," Murphy added. "But we do have the players to get there. We have 25 individuals working for one."
