WINCHENDON, Mass. (1/18/23) – The rough times rolled on for Franklin Pierce men's hockey on Tuesday night, as the Ravens dropped their sixth straight decision to Anna Maria College by a 4-2 final at Jason Ritchie Ice Arena.

Men's hockey falls to 8-11 (5-4 NE10) overall with the loss, while the Amcats improve to 8-9-1 with the win.  

The Ravens looked confident out of the gate with clean breakouts and quality chances. At the 11:24 mark of the first period, one of the chances paid off as senior defender Stephen Jacobs (Hingham, Mass.) sent a slapshot bar-down from the point on the power-play to give Pierce the 1-0 lead. Forwards Devin Rohrich (Pittsburgh, Penn.) and Trevor Lawler (East Bridgewater, Mass.) each had assists on what was Jacobs' third goal of the season. Through the first 20 minutes played, the one-goal lead would stand for Franklin Pierce, despite being outshot by a 12-8 margin.

Graduate forward Anthony Nikolopoulos (Burlington, Mass.) extended the Raven lead to 2-0 on his fifth goal of the season, which came at the 5:42 mark of the second frame off a rebound that he slid around the Anna Maria netminder, also on the man-advantage. However, the power-play luck also found its way over to the Amcat side of the ice, where they later cut the Raven lead in half on a goal from Giovani Perillo at 16:13. The second period would end with the 2-1 advantage still in the Ravens' hands, but things would only go south from there.

The Amcats opened the final stanza with just over a minute of power-play time remaining on a late second period penalty by the Ravens, and managed to harvest momentum from it despite the successful kill-off by Pierce. Anna Maria's Aryan Batra took advantage of a loose puck in the low slot and sent a shot top-corner at the 3:01 mark of the period, tying the contest up at 2-2. From that point onward, the Ravens struggled to keep up with the visitors, and struggled to generate quality scoring chances out of their own end. With 3:29 left to play, Anna Maria scored the go-ahead goal off a bad angle shot that found the top corner of the goal, just barely beating Raven starter Brogan McDonald (Gorham, Maine) over the right shoulder. Shortly thereafter, the contest would be put on ice with an empty netter, rounding out the 4-2 final score.

Brogan McDonald, despite the loss, stood out for the Ravens in net after closing the door on 38-of-41 shots faced, making a series of strong saves throughout the evening. Amcat starter Aidan Richardson made saves on 22-of-24 shots faces, earning his fourth win of the season (4-4-1).

Men's Hockey kicks off an NE10 weekend series with Saint Michael's College on Friday, January 21^st at 7:10 p.m.