The Keene State College men’s hockey team played three games this past weekend. On Friday and Saturday, they played the University of Connecticut and Merrimack College at Keene Ice, and on Sunday they traveled to Worcester to face off against the College of the Holy Cross.

On Friday night, the Owls won big against the University of Connecticut Huskies. The Owls had four goals in the first period from Cooper Hines, Andrew Pierce, Kurt Mitchell and Kyle Carignan.

In the second period, the Owls added three more goals. Kyle Carignan and Cooper Hines each had another goal in the second period, giving them two goals each. Chris O’Hara added the final second period goal for the Owls.

In the third period, the Owls struck three more times. The first one was courtesy of Mitchell, his second goal of the game. The final two goals were scored by O’Hara, which gave him a hat-trick. Carlin Testa and Matt Goss were both in net for the Owls.

On Saturday night, the Owls played against the Merrimack College Warriors. KSC struck first again, and this time it was Pierce who lit the lamp. That would be the only goal of the period.

Colton McCraken/ Equinox Staff

Colton McCraken/ Equinox Staff

Keene had a five minute power play because a major penalty was given to Merrimack. The Owls threw three goals on the board during the man advantage. Pierce scored his second goal of the game early in the second period to put Keene up by two. Jeff Rossman added his first goal of the season to increase the lead to three. Finally, Carignan pushed the lead to four with a goal of his own. Derek Clark added a goal later on in the period. Merrimack managed to get one to make the score 5-1 after the second period.

In the third period, each team struck once. Mitchell scored to make it a 6-1 game. Merrimack added their second goal of the game with about two minutes to play. When the game ended, Keene was victorious with a 6-2 win. Jon Fields made 32 saves on 34 and earned his first win of the year.

On Sunday evening, KSC traveled to Worcester. Massachusetts, to play the College of the Holy Cross. Keene found themselves trailing 4-1 in the second period, but showed great resiliency by scoring eight unanswered goals. By the time the game ended, the scoreboard showed a 10-5 victory. Pierce added two goals for the Owls and the other goals were scored by Derek Clark, Cooper Hines, Tucker Johnson, Lucas Poulin, Michael Boldy, Kurt Mitchell, Kyle Carignan and Tyler Duquette. Jordan Puzzo earned his first career win, putting forth a performance in relief of Jon Fields.

It was a historic weekend for Pierce. On Friday night, he surpassed 100 points and on Saturday night, he became KSC’s all-time leader in points. The record was 103 points, held by class of 2013 player Ed Sullivan. Pierce had a total of 12 points this weekend, contributing five goals and seven assists. Pierce has a total of 111 points, 57 goals and 54 assists.

The Owls record is now 8-0-1. The next game is Friday at 7:20 p.m against Bryant University at Keene Ice.

Austin Sanidas can be contacted at Asandidas@kscequinox.com

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