c/o Bre Cavanaugh
The men’s hockey team’s winning streak was snapped this past weekend as they tied with Colby College and lost to Bowdoin College at home. They now sit in third place in the NESCAC with a record of 8–5–3 in the conference and 10–9–3 overall.
Facing Colby, the Red and Black fell behind early as they surrendered two quick first period goals. However, in the second period, the Cardinals’ offense came to life as forward Alex Giummo ’23 scored on the power play to cut the deficit to one with just under five minutes left before the break. They tied it up at two a little under halfway into the third period as forward Danny Sorabella ’22 scored his second goal of the season on a nice shot from the slot. Following the goal, Wesleyan pushed unsuccessfully for the go-ahead goal during the remaining minutes of regulation. The game eventually went to OT, where neither team scored and the game finished at 2–2. Overall, the Cards outshot Colby 29–25 and goaltender Marc Smith ’24 made 23 crucial saves that enabled the comeback.
Following the tie against Colby, the Red and Black lost 4–1 to Bowdoin. Against the Polar Bears, the Cards once again fell behind early as they gave up a goal late in the opening period. In the second, Wesleyan tied the game up through defender Matt Zandi ’21 MA ’22. However, the game remained tied for only a few minutes, with Bowdoin scoring just three minutes later to retake the lead at 2–1. With just over five minutes to go in regulation, Bowdoin scored to double their lead and then added an empty netter with two minutes remaining to close out the 4–1 victory. In their losing effort, the Cards outshot Bowdoin 31–28 and Erik Voloshin ’24 made 24 saves in goal.
Overall, Sorabella was less than pleased with how the team looked, pointing out their slow starts in both games.
“I thought we got off to a slow start in both games,” Sorabella said. “It’s hard to win a game going down one or two goals in the first. This is something we’ve been working on, putting an emphasis on playing our best starting at the opening faceoff.”
Sorabella also highlighted how the Cards had more energy on Friday night than they did on Saturday, in part because of the large crowd present in the first game.
“In the Friday night game we were able to feed off some energy from the crowd and rally back,” Sorabella said. “Against Bowdoin we found ourselves down early and were never able to sustain pressure in key moments during the game.”
Next up, the Cards will look to rebound from the tough weekend as they wrap up their regular season with a home-and-away series, facing Trinity College at home on Friday night and again on the road on Saturday. Because the Bantams currently sit one position above Wesleyan in the NESCAC standings, these games will determine the playoff seedings.
Sorabella believes the key to bouncing back will be to forget about this past weekend and continue to play a complete game of confident hockey from start to finish.
“We have put the loss against Bowdoin on the back burner and are preparing for Trinity,” Sorabella said. “It is important that we come out against Trinity with confidence and play the best version of Wesleyan hockey. We truly believe that when we’re playing at our best we are hard to beat, regardless of the opponent. It’s up to us to prepare mentally and to bring the right energy to the rink. Great comebacks are memorable, but playing our best for 60 minutes is a better formula for sustained success.”
David Gottlieb can be reached at dgottlieb@wesleyan.edu.