WILKES BARRE, PA - The No. 2 Utica College men's ice hockey team polished off its 13th consecutive win on Friday, while setting up an opportunity to win their fifth UCHC regular season title on Saturday. The Pioneers scored four goals in the first period to get the lead, and peppered the King's net with 63 shots on goal as they took the road conference win by a 7-1 score at Revolution Ice Center.
The Pioneers are now 20-2 this season, with a perfect 15-0 record in UCHC play. The win sets UC up to potentially win the conference regular season title outright on Saturday. A regulation or overtime/shootout win over second place Wilkes would seal that honor for the Pioneers, while a Wilkes win pushes the title chase into the final weekend. Utica is six points up in the standings with three games left to play. Teams are awarded three points for a regulation win, two for an overtime win, and one for an overtime or shootout loss. No. 2 Utica and No. 9 Wilkes meet on Saturday at 5 p.m. in Wilkes Barre.
Regan Cavanagh had a monstrous outing for UC, scoring three goals and adding an assist. The hat trick was his first of the season. Senior captain Dante Zapata scored two goals and added an assist. Buster Larsson put together a three assist performance. Brett Everson posted a goal and an assist on the night, while Brandon Osmundson added a goal of his own.
Netminder Louis-Felix St. Jean improved to 4-1 this season with a 17 save performance. His counterpart, Brandon Daigle, stopped 56 shots in the loss for King's.
The Pioneers won 53 of the 82 faceoffs in the contest. The power play went 1-for-5, while the Monarchs were held to an 0-for-1 evening with the advantage.
It took just one minute for UC to get on the board in a dominant period. At exactly 60 seconds into the game, Cavanagh started his three goal performance on an even strength goal with Larsson and Holland adding assists. The goal was his thirteenth of the season. 38 seconds later, it was Brandon Osmundson's time to double the lead, with Mic Curran and John Moncovich collecting the assists. The assist was Curran's 98th career point. Dante Zapata and Regen Cavanagh would go on to score goals with the offensive floodgates wide open in the King's zone, and Utica held a 4-0 lead after one period. Shots favored Utica by a 25-4 margin in the first 20 minutes.
The scoring pace slowed down considerably in the second period, with each team scoring once. King's cut the lead to 4-1 on a Mahingan Decontie goal at 1:57, but the Pioneers would restore the advantage before the period was out on Zapata's second goal to lead 5-1 after two.
UC scored a pair of insurance goals by way of Cavanagh and Everson in the third to finish off a 7-1 win.