WINCHENDON, Mass. (November 18, 2022) --- Two in-state rivals clashed at the Jason Ritchie Ice Arena on Friday night, as the Southern New Hampshire Penmen posted a 7-4, come-from-behind win over the Franklin Pierce University men's ice hockey team in Northeast-10 Conference play. 

The Ravens controlled the game for 38 minutes, building up a 4-1 lead before senior defenseman Stephen Jacobs (Hingham, Mass.) took a five-minute major for interference. The extended power play allowed the Penmen found their spark, as they struck three times in the final 1:45 of the second, and tacked on three more in the third, to score the final six goals of the night.

With the loss, the Ravens fall to 4-3-0 (2-3-0 NE10), while the Penmen move to 3-5-0 (3-3-0 NE10). The two teams will wrap up their weekend set on Saturday at 3 p.m. at the Jason Ritchie Ice Arena. 

The Ravens controlled the game's tempo in the first period, where they outshot the Penmen, 16-7. Senior defenseman Vito Carlo (Las Vegas, Nev.) scored the opening goal on the power play, with a one-timer from the blue line. With 13:28 left in the period, Tim Usalis scored shorthanded for the Penmen on a whacky goal from the neutral zone that fooled Franklin Pierce graduate student netminder Kyle Martin (Westford, Mass.). With two minutes left in the frame, graduate student forward Chris Stevenson (Arvada, Colo.) scored on the rebound of a shot by his senior linemate, Conor Foley (Nahant, Mass.), and the Ravens took a 2-1 lead into the locker room.

Things continued to go Franklin Pierce's way through the middle of the second period. Foley converted on a 2-on-1 break, as he received a pass from Stevenson to push the lead out to 3-1, at the 6:04 mark. Four minutes later, Carlo picked up his second goal of the game on a pass behind the net from Foley to make it a 4-1 game. 

Then disaster hit the Ravens as Jacobs got his arms up on an open-ice hit in the neutral zone and was assessed a five-minute major for interference. The tables turned quickly as the Penmen struck for three goals on the power play in the final 1:45 of the second period, to level things at 4-4 before the second intermission. Freshman Brendan Lynch struck first, in a 5-on-3 situation at 18:15, as he buried a backhander from the bottom of the left circle. Just 36 seconds later, junior Matt Amante popped the water bottle off the top of the net from the middle of the left circle. Next, with just 8.1 seconds left in the period, senior George Thurston, who was held quiet for much of the night, scored from the left circle as well, to tie the game.

The Penmen would open the third period with 2:26 still remaining on the power play. The Ravens kept the game tied, but the damage was largely already done. The Penmen sucked the air out of the Ravens for the rest of the third period, to the tune of a 13-4 advantage in shots. At the 5:28 mark of the stanza, SNHU took the lead for the first time, and for good, as graduate student Dominic DiMambro forced a turnover behind the goal line and fed the puck into the slot for a one-time finish by sophomore Connor Ball.

To ice the game, the Penmen scored two empty-net goals in a matter of six seconds to finish things off, courtesy of senior Andrew Ray and Ball's second of the game.

Martin (4-3-0) made 30 saves against 35 shots in the loss.

On the SNHU side of the ledger, graduate student Adam Mercer (3-3-0) started, but was pulled in the middle of the second period, following the fourth Franklin Pierce goal. He returned to the crease to start the third with the game tied and, in all, made 22 saves against 26 shots for the Penmen. Sophomore Cam Bernard added four saves against four shots over 9:17 of work in the second period.