Box Score February Premium Club Menu
NIAGARA UNIV., N.Y. - The Niagara men's hockey team (12-9-7; 11-5-5 AHA) saw their seven-game undefeated streak come to a halt after falling to the Mercyhurst Lakers (15-11-4; 12-5-4 AHA), 3-2 on Saturday night at Dwyer Arena.
Sophomore forward
Ryan Murphy pulled Niagara within one midway through the second period to make it a 3-2 game heading into the final frame, but the Purple Eagles could not battle back to keep their undefeated streak alive. Murphy tallied his fifth goal of the year and third in two games off feeds from sophomore
Kevin Ryan and junior
C.J. Chartrain.
"We just couldn't get anything going five-on-five," head coach
David Burkholder said. "It wasn't a great effort, but after forty minutes we were still in it. We had a chance at it and emptied the tank in the third. We've come back a lot of times this year, but nothing went in. It's unfortunate the way we lost our seven-game unbeaten streak tonight."
Freshman
Chris Lochner grabbed his ninth goal of the season; his seventh in five games at the 13:15 mark of the opening period while on the powerplay. Murphy found
Patrick Divjak in the front of the crease who one-timed a perfect feed to Lochner for the easy tap in past Laker goalie Jordan Tibbett.
Mercyhurst evened the game with less than a minute left in the period off the stick of Daniel O'Donaghue.
Jones capitalized on the Laker's fifth man-advantage of the evening, giving Mercyhurst their first lead of the game 1:53 into the second stanza. Junior forward Paul Chiasson scored the eventual game-winning goal on an unassisted tally two minutes later to make it a 3-1 game.
Niagara netminder
Chris Noonan finished the game with 29 saves.
Niagara clashes with Air Force in a weekend series at Dwyer Arena starting on Friday, Feb. 10 and concluding the following day. Both contests begin at 7:05 p.m.
To reserve your tickets to the games, contact the Niagara Ticket Office (located inside Dwyer Arena) at 716-286-TIXX or by emailing
Tickets@PurpleEagles.com.
