RYE, NY – It'll be a group road trip to Utica for UCHC semifinals for a second year in a row as the Manhattanville College men's hockey team has advanced to the second round of tournament play following a 4-1 win over No. 5 Wilkes on Wednesday night. The men's hockey team will join the women, who punched their tickets to Utica earlier in the night, for Saturday playoff action against the Pioneers.
With the win, the Valiants improve to 14-10-2 overall on the 2022-23 campaign.
The Valiants struck first following a scoreless 26 minutes to open up the night. Mitchell Watson would break the scoreless spell 6:42 into the second with the sixth goal of his rookie season, finishing off a setup from Lane Paddison and Artem Mateichenko. The primary was Paddison's ninth of the season, while Mateichenko collected his team-leading 18
th helper of the year on the secondary.
The Colonels, meanwhile, had no success in their limited opportunities in the first two periods against Sebastian Woods. Wilkes would generate just ten total shots in the opening 40 minutes, five in each period. With the chances few and far between for the Colonels, Woods made sure to turn away everything he saw when the opposing team did manage to set up shop in the offensive zone.
The Valiants doubled their lead just 17 seconds into third courtesy of Mason Emoff. The senior set up shop in front of the Wilkes crease and deflected in Nick Prestia's slapper from the blue line to tip the puck past Garrett Nieto. Glynn Robitaille would earn the secondary helper on Emoff's tenth of the season.
The Colonels ultimately got on the board with 4:30 gone in the period as Christian Blomquist was able to beat Woods for the first time on the night. However, that would be all for the Wilkes attack on the night, as Manhattanville's rookie goaltender stepped up in his busiest period of the night to stop 13 of 14 shots.
The Valiants got their two goal lead back with 1:28 left to play courtesy of Prestia's eighth of the year. Fifteen seconds later, Emoff put the game to bed with an empty netter from Robitaille.
Woods finished the night with 23 total saves in his first taste of postseason action. The rookie is now 12-4-2 on the year with a 2.78 goals-against average and a .920 save percentage.
The Valiants narrowly held the faceoff advantage, 30 to 29. Raymond Speerbrecker won a team-high nine draws for Manhattanville.
Neither team found success on the power play, although no penalties would be assessed until the third period. Manhattanville finished 0-for-1 with two shots, while Wilkes went 0-for-3 with eight shots on net.
Up Next
It'll be a Manhattanville-Utica doubleheader on Saturday with a pair of trips to the UCHC Championship on the line. Times for both games are to be announced.