ELMIRA, N.Y. – The Elmira College Soaring Eagles Men’s Ice Hockey team dropped a 4-3 decision against the visiting Seahawks from Salve Regina in its non-conference game at First Arena on Friday evening. The Seahawks, who compete in the Commonwealth Coast Conference (CCC) used three straight goals in the second period to erase its 2-0 deficit before notching the game-winner in the 14th minute of play of the final period shortly after the Soaring Eagles completed a successful penalty kill.
Brendan Schultz ’24, Kerfalla Toure ’26, and Nicholas Domitrovic ’24 each scored for Elmira in the loss, while Shawn Kennedy ’24, Mitch Haight ’24, Bailey Krawczyk ’24, and Amedeo Mastrangeli ’24 all notched assists.
Kyle Curtin ’26 would be credited with the loss in net for the Soaring Eagles, while making 21 saves.
JUST THE BASICS:
SCORE: Elmira 3, Salve Regina 4
LOCATION: Elmira, New York | First Arena
TEAM RECORDS: Elmira (7-5-0, 5-1-0 NEHC), Salve Regina (5-3-1, 4-3-1 CCC)
HOW IT HAPPENED:
The Soaring Eagles and Seahawks would battle throughout the opening period of play in which proved to be a physical game for both teams. With little offensive action in the first period, it would be Schultz who would score his third of the season at the 16:09 mark on an assist from Shawn Kennedy to break open the scoring. After Brendan Kim turned the puck over in Salve’s offensive zone, Kennedy would shoot the puck up the left side to Schultz, who finished past Seahawks goaltender Anthony Del Tufo into the upper-right part of the twine.
The period would end with Elmira holding onto its 1-0 advantage, with Curtin making nine saves in net while EC led the shots battle 13-9.
In the second, it would take the Soaring Eagles just under five minutes to double their advantage as Toure scored his fifth goal of the season on an assist from Haight. After Haight dumped the puck in towards Del Tufo, Toure was able to clean up the puck while having to beat just the goaltender, which he did to put Elmira ahead 2-0.
From there, it would be three consecutive goals for the Seahawks which began at the 7:31 mark on a power-play goal from Seth Benson. Just 57 seconds later, Mitch Walinski would net the equalizer, unassisted, from just inside the neutral zone. At exactly the midway point of the second period, it would be Benson again who would score to put Salve Regina ahead 3-2 heading into the final period of play. Through two periods of play, Elmira controlled both the shot battle (25-18), along with a heavy advantage in faceoffs (30-16) led by Chance Gorman ’24 with ten.
At the end of the second period, Kaiden Kanderka for Salve Regina was called for a five minute major, plus a game misconduct which gave Elmira a five minute advantage to begin the third period. To start the period, it took EC just 1:09 to tie the contest as Domitrovic found the back of the net. After Mastrangeli fed the puck to Krawczyk, who took it up the right end of the ice, he found Domitrovic in front of the net who was able to clean up his own shot to tie the contest.
From there, the game would remain quiet offensively until the 13:33 mark when John Mulera found the back of the net on an assist from Brendan Kim, which would go down as the game-winner for the Seahawks.
UP NEXT:
The Purple & Gold will return to the ice tomorrow afternoon, wrapping up its stint at First Arena when taking on the Mules from Colby College at 4:00 PM. For Elmira, its matchup against the NESCAC opponent will be its final non-conference game of the regular season.
