DIII Flames snap four-game skid, split series with Tennessee | Club Sports

February 28, 2021  |  Lynchburg, Va. 

A weekend after going 0-3 on its first road trip at perennial power Florida Gulf Coast University, Liberty University’s Division III men’s hockey team split its two-game series with the University of Tennessee at the LaHaye Ice Center, winning Saturday night’s opener, 7-5, before losing Sunday afternoon’s rematch, 5-3.

Tennessee’s Kieren Ogle opened the scoring in Game 1 with the first of his four goals on the night before Flames sophomore forward Jaime Ross threaded a pass through the crease to senior forward Aaron Partridge waiting on the doorstep for a point-blank finish, his fifth goal of the season.

Freshman defenseman Graham Wood, from the Volunteers’ hometown of Knoxville, Tenn., lifted Liberty to a 2-1 lead with 14:45 left in the second period by netting his third goal of the season unassisted on a power play, skating the puck up the right wing and sneaking his shot inside the right post. But Tennessee tied it up with a shorthanded score just over a minute later, when Andrej Buchko, a player/graduate assistant coach who played the past three seasons at Concordia-Wisconsin, skated around the Flames’ defense and beat freshman goalie Kyle Wesbury with a wrist shot.

Liberty sophomore forward Kenny Fogarty, who totaled seven points in the two-game series, distributed one of his five assists Saturday, sending a beautiful outlet stretch pass to junior forward Scott Chisholm, who skated in on UT goalie Brandon Shaw one-on-one and slipped his shot through the five hole to push the Flames to a 3-2 lead at the 2:51 mark.

Exactly two and a half minutes later, Fogarty set up sophomore forward Evan Enrich’s top-shelf shot from in the slot to double Liberty’s edge to 4-2 with 21 seconds left in the period.

The Volunteers got one goal back just over five minutes into the third before Enrich put away the rebound of a point-blank shot by Fogarty to keep the Flames up, 5-3. Fogarty controlled sophomore defenseman Andrew Pascarella’s outlet chip pass, juggling the puck past two Tennessee defensemen on a fast break before sending a backhanded feed to Chisholm for an open finish on the right side. 

Ogle brought Tennessee back within 6-5 with back-to-back goals in the final 5:20 of play before Ross scored on an empty-netter for the final margin of victory.

The Volunteers opened a 3-0 lead on Sunday with Buchko netting a natural hat trick capped by two scores off breakaway steals, the last shorthanded, before the Flames stormed back to tie the contest by scoring the first three goals of the third period. Fogarty assisted freshman forward William Smiley on a fast break finish that trimmed the deficit to 3-1 at the 15:24 mark before netting the next two goals — deflecting in a shot by Ross from the point and firing a putback off the back of UT goalie Baylor Winecoff from behind the right post with 10:16 to go.

However, Tennessee reclaimed the lead with 8:01 remaining in regulation when Matt Scott snuck a shot past Flames replacement goalie Sam Bell into the top right corner of the cage and sealed the series split after Matt Megazzini capitalized on a turnover in the defensive zone just over a minute later.

The Flames (3-5-1) have seven more regular-season games before hosting Tennessee, High Point, and the University of Florida in the March 26-28 ACCHL tournament. That will be their last tune-up for the 16-team College Hockey Federation (CHF) National Championships set for April 17-19 in Philadelphia.

 This Friday and Saturday at 7 p.m., Liberty will host its third series against Coastal Carolina, a team it swept on Nov. 6-7 before being swept by the Chanticleers in the Jan. 29-30 rematch back at the LIC.

 

By Ted Allen/Staff Writer; Videos by Patrick Strawn/Club Sports Director of Video & Media