Overtime goal lifts PSU Men's Hockey over Johnson & Wales

Plymouth State University junior Chris Chambers lifted the Panthers to a 5-4-overtime victory over Johnson & Wales on Sat., February 7 at the Waterville Valley Arena.

The overtime winner completed a four-goal rally for PSU who snapped a two game skid with the victory.  PSU first year student Justin Phenney tied the game at one score apiece five minutes through the first period.  Johnson and Wales then ran off three goals in a row on scores by junior Kevin Marchesi, first year student Zach Hamilton and sophomore Joe Simeone.

PSU senior Dave Dufresne started the rally for the Panthers on his fourth goal of the season with just over a minute left in the second period.  Sophomore Kyle Tobin would keep the momentum going for PSU in the third period with a power play-goal with 9:35 minutes left to play.  Sophomore Bryan Horrigan would complete the rally just over a minute later with his sixth goal of the season.  

PSU head coach Brett Tryder was particularly pleased with his goalie Allen Schneider "Schneider continues to play well in net. He saw a ton of pucks this week and saved the ones he had to save," said Tryder, "Steve Ficaro was probably our best defenseman in the Johnson & Wales game, he made good decisions with the puck and didn't give Johnson & Wales much room to move. On offense you have to give credit to the guy that scores in OT. Chambers has scored plenty of goals in his career but none bigger than the one against J&W in overtime," said Tryder.

What made this victory even more impressive was that PSU won despite not achieving their strategy of getting off to a fast start. According to coach Tryder "Our main strategy was to come out fast and play physical hockey. Some of guys did not have their legs early so our strategy was not successful. We ended up having to hang in there and try to outlast them."  Overall Coach Tryder was pleased with the way his team performed despite did a pretty good job staying focused," said Tryder.

With the victory, PSU improved to 9-10-2 overall with a 5-6-2 ECAC Northeast record.  Johnson & Wales had its two game winning streak snapped and fell to 8-9-2 overall; and 7-3-1in the ECAC Northeast.

PSU will move on to play Suffolk University in their third straight home game.  Suffolk is 6-13-2 overall with a 5-6-2 conference record.  Johnson & Wales will play on the road against Fitchburg State College who is 8-8-5 overall and 5-5-3 in conference play.the slow start, "We had a lot of shots on net. We totaled 51, which I think is a season high. I also think that in a must win game it would have been easy lose our cool, when we went down 4-1," said Tryder, "I think that we