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First-year players continue to impress for the Pirates.

 

The team took to their home ice on Saturday night to face off against the Monmouth Hawks. The Pirates, looking for their seventh win in a row, soon found out that they'd have their work cut out for them. After a questionable boarding call put the Pirates on the penalty kill, the Hawks capitalized on a weird bounce in front and took the early lead. For the first time all season, the Pirates found themselves behind on the scoreboard. However, after a lot of back-and-forth defensive play, Seton Hall responded with two goals in two minutes, scored by senior Luke Kirkowski and junior Cam Toussaint. Entering the locker room up 2-1, the Pirates knew that the battle was far from over.

 

The second period saw ever more clean defensive play than the first. In fact, there were only six combined penalties in the entire game, three from each side. The teams remained scoreless in the period until freshman John Anselmo found himself some prime real estate in the slot and buried a rebound, extending the Pirates lead to 3-1. The team fought hard to maintain their two-goal lead, and behind several key saves from freshman Joey Yutsus, the boys were able to kill off a penalty late in the period and return to the locker room for a much-needed rest.

 

With one more period to go, both teams fought hard and emptied the tanks. Halfway through the third, Monmouth got yet another lucky bounce and narrowed Seton Hall's lead to one. However, just one minute later, rookie and first-line sensation Tyler Fearon found the back of the net and put the Pirates back up by two. Despite numerous efforts from Monmouth to pull closer, Yutsus denied all of them and led the Pirates to a hard-fought 4-2 win. Yutsus, making his first career start, stopped 19 shots in the third. The freshman turned aside a combined 39 of 40 shots in the second and third, and went 48 of 50 for the game, giving him a remarkable 2.00 goals-against average and .960 save percentage. Yutsus earned the MVP hard-hat for his fantastic game in goal.

With the win, the Pirates improve to 7-0-0 in one of the best starts in the club's history. Next weekend proves to be a big test, as four points are up for grabs. The Pirates take on Princeton at home on Friday night, then travel to the Class of 1923 arena to face off against first-place UPenn in a battle of the final two undefeated teams.

 

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