Quinnipiac Beats Brown Bears in Two Games

By Ben Dias, QBSN Staff Writer

The Quinnipiac University men's ice hockey team shutout the Brown Bears 4-0 for the second consecutive night to win the ECAC Hockey Tournament first round series. With the victory the Bobcats advanced to ECAC quarterfinals for the sixth consecutive season. After Dan Clarke started in game one in goal for the Bobcats, Eric Hartzell got the start between the pipes in Game 2. 

“We made the decision Tuesday that Clarke would play game one and Hartzell would play Game 2,” said Quinnipiac head coach Rand Pecknold. “We trust both of them and they both played great this weekend.”  In game one Dan Clarke got the start in net and played brilliantly, stopping 22 shots and earning a 4-0 shutout. Hartzell was called on by Coach Rand Pecknold to man the pipes in Game 2.

“We trust Hartzell, he’s been great all year, and he deserved to play tonight.” “We trust both of them and they played great this weekend,” said Pecknold.

Hartzell proved up for the challenge for Game 2, stopping 26 shots and matching Clarke’s stellar effort from game 1 by earning a 4-0 shutout victory.  

Throughout the first period, neither team found any momentum due to careless play with the puck. The first period consisted of four penalties. Brown went on the man-advantage 5 minutes into the game as Bobcats sophomore forward, Russell Goodman was penalized for boarding in the Brown offensive zone. Brown couldn’t do much with the puck as the Bobcats interior defenseman blocked and deflected shots from the point. Bobcats goalie Eric Hartzell also warded off any chances Brown got on the powerplay with some stellar goaltending.  With 9 min left in the period, Quinnipiac went on the man-advantage as Brown’s Mark Hourihan was called for boarding. The Bobcats had some opportunities but their shots where wide of the goal.

Neither team could manage much offense in the first period. Brown’s Hourihan was called for his second penalty just a few minutes later, and the Bobcats went on their second consecutive power play with 6 minutes left in the period. The Bobcats did have some opportunities to capitalize on the man-advantage. Junior forward Yuri Bouharevich rocketed a shot off the cross bar, that bounced off junior forward, Scott Zurevinski’s glove and fell right into the stick of a wide-open Jeremy Langlois. Langlois took the bouncing puck and wristed it past Clemente. However, the referees called the goal off, because they determined that Zurevinski hand-passed the puck to the open Langlois.

Brown’s inability to get their offense going, together with many frustrating penalties led to the Bobcats first goal. Brown’s Harry Zolnierczyk was called for charging with just over 30 seconds to play in the first period. Quinnipiac had its third power-play of the period. The Bobcats ended the period tied scoreless with Brown.

After the second intermission the Bobcats knew they had to dominate the offensive zone and putt pressure on Brown’s penalty killing line. Quinnipiac had 1:30 remaining on the rest of the PP from the first period to work their offense.  The Bobcats wasted no time for their offense to finally strike. Sophomore defenseman, Zack Currie put the Bobcats on the board, just 35 seconds into the second period. Zurevinski skated with the puck from behind the endboards, rifled a pass at the right wing point to senior defenseman, Zach Hansen. Hansen rocketed a pass to Currie in the slot, who blasted a one-timer that sailed into the back of the net past Clemente’s blocker. It was Currie’s second goal of the season, and his first career postseason goal. 

The Bobcats struck right back less than 2 minutes later, when sophomore defenseman Loren Barron, shoveled the puck from the neutral zone to the left wing, where sophomore forward Jeremy Langlois fired a blast that had enough velocity and force on it to deflect off the pad of Clemente and find the back of the net, giving the Bobcats a 2-0 lead.  With the goal Langlois recorded his 17th of the season.

Eric Hartzell was huge in net for the Bobcats. Brown had back to back man-advantages in the second period. Neither power play amounted to anything for the Bears. Hartzell came up with a few big saves on the penalty kill. Brown had a few chances in front of the net, but Hartzell made a blocker and glove save. The Bobcats killed off the two penalties and it remained a two goal game.

Quinnipiac would have netted their third goal of the period if freshman defenseman, Corey Hibbeler’s break away chance had not missed the net. He tried to go top corner on Clemente, but his shot missed everything and went wide.

The third period was all Bobcats. QU continued to put pressure in the attacking zone as Brown’s defenders were constantly out of position and forced to play from behind. The Bobcats continued to push the puck up the ice and look for holes in the Bears defense.

With just under 10 minutes left in the third period, senior forward Zack Hansen scored his second goal of the series and third of the season. Hansen intercepted a pass in Brown’s defensive zone and skated along the right side-boards. He blasted a slap shot from the right wing point into the top corner beating Clemente’s glove side, extending the Bobcats lead to 3-0. It proved to be all the scoring the Bobcats needed. Hansen’s blast from just outside of the right wing circle, ended the night for Brown goalie Matt Clemente. For the second consecutive game, Clemente was pulled for the services of backup Anthony Borelli. Borelli didn’t help Brown’s cause as sophomore forward, Ben Arnt added the icing on the cake with less than six minutes to play. He wristed a shot over the blocker of Borelli into the back of the net, scoring his sixth goal of the season and proving to be all Brown could handle.

Quinnipiac’s first round sweep of the Brown Bears means that the Bobcats will travel to Ithaca, New York to take on the No. 4 ranked “Big Red” of Cornell. The Bobcats will play Cornell in a best-of-three ECAC Hockey Tournament Quarterfinals Series on March 11-13.