NIAGARA UNIV., N.Y. - The Niagara men's hockey team (9-6-2, 7-4-0 AHA) fell into an early hole that it was unable to climb out of, falling to the UConn Huskies (4-7-3, 4-4-1 AHA) at Dwyer Arena on Saturday evening.

Connecticut struck just nine seconds into the game when Cole Schneider stuffed a rebound past Niagara goalie Chris Noonan. After the Purple Eagles had a goal waved off on the man-advantage, the Huskies took a 2-0 lead when Billy Latta beat Noonan high.

The Huskies would expand their lead to 5-0 by netting three goals in a span of 7:01 to open the middle stanza. The Purple Eagles finally got on the board when senior Ryan Annesley ripped a shot from the point that beat UConn netminder Garrett Bartus. Three minutes later Niagara drew closer, when senior Paul Zanette slammed home a loose puck on the door step on the man-advantage. Niagara would make it a 5-3 game just 1:56 later, when freshman Scott Arnold beat Bartus.

After two Huskies goal in the first 4:02 of the third period, Arnold notched his second goal of the night to make the score 7-4. In the final minute of regulation, freshman Patrick Divjak notched his first career goal, slamming home a great feed from senior David Ross.

"I tell the team all the time that you need to win the first two minutes and the last two minutes of every period; to begin and end strong," head coach Dave Burkholder said. "Unfortunately for us, we didn't do that tonight and it hurt us."

Both senior Bryan Haczyk and sophomore Giancarlo Iuorio notched at least a point in the 8-5 loss to the Huskies, pushing their consecutive game point scoring streak to 13 games.

Niagara wraps up the 2010 portion of their schedule on Dec. 11, when Niagara visits Hamilton, N.Y. to take on Colgate.