Tufts steamrolls Conn. College in pair of games honoring Green Dot program

Tufts Men's Hockey defeated Conn. College 4-1 at home on Friday and then again 8-1 on Saturday while away. The wins improve Tufts' record to 4-6-4 in conference play and 8-7-5 overall, vaulting the Jumbos into the seventh place in the NESCAC. They were tied for eighth with the White Mules last week. The Camels were unable to garner any points this weekend and were eliminated from playoff contention at 0-12-2 in conference.

"It’s such a tight window between us, Colby, Wesleyan, Amherst [and] Bowdoin, and I feel like all of those teams are ... still too close and nobody has really separated," Coach Patrick Norton said. "With the eight points still...remaining there’s still a lot up for grabs. It helps to get those points but we certainly need to do our job the rest of the way in."

The eight points the Jumbos managed on Saturday were the most they have put up in a game since an 8-5 victory over the Hamilton Cardinals on Feb. 5, 2010. Junior Patrick Lackey started the scoring off at 9:27 in the first off an assist from junior Mike Leary and first-year Jefferson Martin. Senior co-captain Stewart Bell later found twine behind Conn. College senior goalie Tom Conlin with seven seconds remaining in the period. Sophomore Nick Flanagan earned the assist on Bell's fifth goal of the season. The Jumbos took their 2-0 lead into the second period.

Conn. College junior Ryan Mowery was called for elbowing just before the first period ended, and first-year defenseman Conner Judson further disadvantaged the Camels when he interfered at the start of the second. With a six on four advantage, first-year Clay Berger, who is tied for the third most assists on the team with seven, scored the first goal of his collegiate career nine seconds into the second period. Sophomore Chad Goldberg assisted.

Halfway through the period, Bell notched his second goal of the game on another power play to increase the deficit to 4-0.First-year David Lackner and junior Matt Pugh assisted. According to Norton, Bell had been frustrated with his lack of recent offensive production, but his two games at Conn. College tied him for the team lead with six on the season.

"[Bell's] tenacity is always among the best on the team," Norton said. "He was able to find the back of the net a few times over the weekend, but he also made a couple of plays that helped us—back-checks, defensive plays, blocked shots—that helped us gain a little momentum."

Junior defenseman Sean Kavanagh scored two minutes later, and Pugh again assisted.The score, at 5-0, promised shutout, but Camels' Captain, senior Tim DiPretoro scored his 12th goal of the season on a power play at the 14-minute mark of the second to stave off a perfect night for Jumbo sophomore goalie Nik Nugnes.

Not content to sit on their lead, in the third period, the Jumbos scored twice within 52 seconds, beginning with Lackey's goal at 8:12. Like Bell, Lackey scored twice on Saturday to finish the weekend with six goals on the season. Senior co-captain Brian Ouellette and first-year Nick Abbene assisted. The Camels pulled Conlin after Lackey's goal, but Goldberg scored on his substitute—junior Austin Essery—almost immediately. Sophomores Brian Brown and Trevor Davis assisted.

At 12:30 in the third, Abbene fired a shot past Essery for his second goal of the weekend and the final score of the game. The score held at 8-1 for the remainder of the game.

"I think it’s a momentum builder," Abbene said. "I think it gives us some confidence. We know we are a good hockey team. We know we can beat the best teams in the league. Sometimes it’s just one bad bounce. Our older guys are very important to our team and such but we are, at the end of the day, a little young. Sometimes we are prone to not bring our A-game every single shift every single game."

Conlin allowed six goals and stopped 27 shots while Essery stopped two shots and allowed two goals.Nugnes saved 18 shots and allowed one goal in his return from a lower body injury. His last game was a 46-save, three-goal-allowed effort against Trinity on Jan. 22.

"[Nugnes] is still suffering," Goldberg said. "He’s a trooper, I’d say. He’s battling everyday. He’ll have to have multiple surgeries in the offseason, but he’s still coming to practice and games, and he’s helping the team tremendously."

On Friday, the Jumbos got off to somewhat of a slow start when the league's official scheduler accidentally omitted the game from its website and there were no referees scheduled to officiate. After an hour and a half delay, four NCAA-certified referees were found and the game was allowed to begin.

The Jumbos wasted no time scoring after the first whistle. Ouellette fired a point-shot from the right side which sailed over Conlin's shoulder into the net just past the two-minute mark. Two minutes and 20 seconds later, Goldberg crossed the blue line on a two-on-one fast break and kept the puck to score.

In the second period, Leary extended Tufts' lead to three off an assist from Goldberg. Goldberg scored and assisted in both games. He missed the first seven games of this season with a concussion and 22 of 26 games his first year due to a broken collarbone.

"I’m just glad to be back," Goldberg said. "It’s good to know that I can start contributing again. I’ve missed the last two years basically, so I haven’t done much for the team, but now that the team is doing well and finding the right combination of guys, I think it’s good that I can start contributing and helping us win."

In the third period, senior Joe Birmingham got past Pulde at 17:32 and put the Camels on the board, but with only two and a half minutes remaining, the Camels were unable to muster enough pressure to score again. After Coach Jim Ward pulled Conlin, the Jumbos were able to force a turnover and Abbene attempted to pass to Flanagan. Flanagan recognized that the puck's trajectory would carry it into the goal and allowed it through. The score remained 4-1 until the final whistle after the empty netter.

Pulde saved 50 shots and allowed only one goal, while his Camels counterpart Conlin saved 42 shots and allowed three goals. After this weekend, Pulde leads the NESCAC in save percentage by 0.1 percent. He has saved 95.1 percent of shots thus far this season. Nugnes is fifth at 94.4 percent.

Both games were in honor of the Green Dot Program which aims to reduce instances of power-based personal violence through content development and intervention training. According to Norton, senior Dominic Granato and some of the younger players took the lead on bringing the Green Dot game to Tufts on Friday. Conn. College hosted its fifth annual Green Dot game on Saturday.

"[That] it's raising awareness is the biggest thing," Abbene said. "Even at a very conscious school like Tufts you go into parties, and there are things you don’t even realize are wrong until you sit down and have a discussion about it. I think [Green Dot] is something that is important to have on campus. I think the game is a good start and hopefully it will become a yearly thing, and we can do more things even before the game ...  Maybe make it a school-wide thing."

"I think [Green Dot] is important, especially these days," Goldberg said. "I haven’t [been] trained in Green Dot, but I know it basically means bystander intervention and prevention for sexual assault. So I think it’s important, especially being in a fraternity as well, that we start changing the culture from this sort of rape culture... We need to change that... [and we] really need to step in and start being proactive about it. There’s no better time than the first few years of college to help that stick in people’s minds."

Tufts looks to continue to stay competitive in the middle of the pack in the NESCAC with a pair of games this weekend at Amherst on Saturday and at Hamilton on Sunday.