PHOTO BY BRIANNA STEVENS
The Plymouth State Men’s Hockey team was victorious in their two home games over the past week. This Saturday they defeated the Corsairs of Umass Dartmouth, 4-2, during their Salute the Troops night where they debuted a new military-themed alternate uniform. On Tuesday, the team demolished Castleton, 7-0, keeping their early season record at a respectable 5-0-1.
The Panthers had the power play working in their favor against the Corsairs, scoring the game's first two goals on the man advantage. Senior Tim Perron (Northborough, Mass) and Junior Victor Bergstrom (Angelholm, Sweden) scored the two goals for Plymouth. Perron’s coming in the first period of play and Bergstrom’s coming at the start of the second.
“I thought overall as a team we had a strong game, we were able to execute a lot of systems we wanted to utilize against them and use our team speed to push the pace” said Perron after Saturday’s game, “as a team we had a couple lapses in our defensive zone that led to breakdowns but overall were able to manage and fix those issues during play…overall I felt that I had a good game definitely not perfect took a couple penalties early on…but playing with Viktor Bergstrom makes my job a lot easier where I can rely on my skating ability and know he has me covered.”
The Corsairs were able to tie the game up after scoring goals in the second and third period. Junior, Alec LeFave (Hudson, N.H.) broke the tie 28 seconds later in the third period, when he buried a feed from Sophomore Jake Gerbner (Havertown, Pa.) and Freshman Jarrett Slear (West Chester, Pa.). Senior Matt Volonnino (Hackettstown, NJ.) gave the Panthers some breathing room when he scored midway through the end of the period to push the lead to 4-2. Senior Goalie, Evan Morelli (Reading, Mass.) had 27 saves on the night.
Tuesday’s game against Castleton was all Plymouth. Volonnino had two goals on the night. Other notable performances came from Senior Michael Covach (Shillington, Pa.) who netted a goal and assisted on another. Covach now has a team best of 15 points on the year. Morelli had another 20+ save game, turning away 21 shots and shutting out the Spartans.
“As of right now, I think our team is still learning and has such a high ceiling to grow. We are going to be tested a lot as a group with our heavy out of conference schedule. So I think if we buy into our systems and have our upper-class lead by example the sky's the limit for this group of guys,” said Perron.
The Panthers next slated games are Thursday the 16th at Salem State and Thursday the 29th when they host Framingham State for their Teddy Bear Toss. The game on the 16th will not be in time for print coverage.