Princeton University Athletics
Hallisey Has Career Night for Princeton but Late Goal Lifts Maine to Victory
BOX SCORE
ORONO, Maine (11/27/15) - Will Merchant scored the game-winning goal with 51 seconds to play as Maine took Game 1 of the two-game series, 5-3 over Princeton this evening at Alford Arena.
Sophomore David Hallisey had a career night as he factored into every Princeton goal, scoring twice and assisting on the third.
The game went back and forth, as the team's traded goals in the first, second and third periods. An empty-net goal 34 seconds after Merchant's leading goal padded the score for Maine.
"There's so much parity in college hockey that anyone can win," Princeton head coach Ron Fogarty said. "Once you get those tangible results then it's easier to keep progressing forward. We're kind of in the same boat as Maine right now, looking for those wins, but it was great effort by the Black Bears tonight."
Princeton had a number of scoring chances in the early going and five minutes in had a 4-1 shot advantage.
However Maine stole some momentum when it got on the board first. Nolan Vesey redirected a shot in the slot that came from Mark Hamilton just inside the blue line.
Hallisey’s first goal of the season tied the game at 1-1 at 12:20. The goal, a power-play goal, came just 16 seconds after the restart. Dan Renouf was called for holding on Mike Ambrosia as goalie Matt Morris gave the puck away. Freshman Ryan Kuffner broke the puck out of the corner and fed Hallisey in the right circle. He turned and fired gloveside on Morris.
Colton Phinney kept the teams even with a number of saves in the final five minutes of the first as the Black Bears started to put together some offense. Brian Morgan had the best chance to give his team the lead but Phinney made the save in the breadbasket with 1:02 remaining.
The middle frame was full of action with a goal for each team as the special teams took over.
Princeton killed off its first penalty with ease, not allowing a single shot on goal. Less than two minutes later however the Tigers went back on the kill and the nation’s top-ranked penalty killing unit gave up just its second goal of the season. Blaine Byron got past the outstretched pad of Phinney with 26 seconds left on the Spencer Kryczka penalty.
The Tigers looked to get one back as they had a 5x3 advantage for 1:09 after Cedric Lacroix was called for elbowing and Will Merchant for interference. Maine did a nice job on the kill, giving up just one shot and had two short-handed chanced. Joe Grabowski had a great poke check on the first and Phinney made the save on Steve Swavely’s shot as the penalties expired.
Hallisey net his second goal of the game with 1:39 remaining to take the teams into the locker room tied at 2-2. Eric Robinson came down the right side and found Hallisey open on the left side for the backdoor goal.
The decisive goal came with just 51.7 seconds left as Merchant cleaned up a deflection.
Princeton put the extra skater on with 40 seconds remaining, and then called a timeout with 28 ticks on the clock. The Tigers tried to fight off Swaveley but he tossed the puck in from the opposite blue line for the empty-net goal to seal the victory for Maine.
"Their goalie made some good saves and we had a lot of good chances," Phinney said post game. "They had a couple. They were pretty good at getting traffic in front, as you could see from their first goal the kid made a nice tip but I mean we kept them to the outside for the most part and we scored three goals so we could have won. But I thought their goalie played well, they played well, our guys played well. It could have gone either way."
Phinney finished the game with 38 saves while Morris stopped 30 shots for Maine.
Princeton was 2 for 3 on the power play while Maine was 1 for 4.
The teams will finish out the series tomorrow night at 7 p.m.