NEWS

KINGSTON, RHODE ISLAND—#5 URI took on #4 Rutgers University in the second playoff game Friday night in the ESCHL 2017 Hockey Tournament. The Rams completely dominated this one on both offense and defense, winning by a score of 5-0. They move on to play tomorrow, same place and same time but against Liberty University this time around.

The Rams opened this game with a quick rebound score by Nate Bastian, assisted from Chris Mayer and Sandy Gray. After a holding penalty on Rutgers, with 4:23 remaining in the first period, Senior Billy D’amore scored a power play goal from Matthew Kowash to make it a 2-0 game which held through to the end of the first period. Shots were in favor of the Rams to this point, 19-9.

Disregarding penalties, it was a fairly quiet second period until there was only 2:56 remaining on the clock for the second. Mike Pesola scored with assists from Jake Salisbury and Ray Boudiette to increase the Rams lead to 3-0. At the end of the second period, shots were in favor of URI, 39-19.

Rutgers could not do anything on offense throughout the entirety of this game, but picked up many penalties during their offensive struggles. With 5:21 remaining in the game, Daniel Caruso scored with an assist from Will Schlichtig to make it a 4-0 game. Within the last minute of the playoff game, Eddie Cordero put the game way, if it was not already out of hand to this point, with a power play goal of his own. This was assisted by Evan Rankin and made it a 5-0 URI lead. The final score was 5-0 Rams, with shots also in favor of the Rams, 49-28. Senior Caleb Neal played phenomenal for URI in this one, recording the shutout on 28 shots sent his way. URI faces Liberty tomorrow to decide who moves on to the championship game.