RINDGE, N.H. (1/27/23) – The Franklin Pierce men's ice hockey team let another decision slip out of their hands in the second period on Friday night, as they opened a two-game homestand series with Assumption University with a 6-3 loss at Jason Ritchie Ice Arena.  

The Ravens fall behind to 9-13 (6-6 NE10) on the season after the setback, while Assumption improves to 13-9 (9-5 NE10) overall with the victory.

The first period saw a trio of powerplay goals scored, two of which belonged to Franklin Pierce. To open the night's scoring, junior forward Trevor Lawler (East Bridgewater, Mass.) found a shooting lane from in between the circles and picked the top-left corner of the goal to put the Ravens ahead 1-0 on the powerplay 3:12 in. The second of the powerplay goals belonged to the Greyhounds on a blistering slapshot from up high by defenseman Sean O'Connell that beat Raven goaltender Kyle Martin (Westford, Mass.) under the right pad, tying the game at 1-1. To close out the period, Trevor Lawler returned for seconds on the man advantage as he caught a cross-crease feed from senior forward Conor Foley (Nahant, Mass.), and sent it into a gaping cage to send Pierce to the locker room leading 2-1.

Despite the first period lead, the second period returned to haunt the Ravens as they struggled to execute clean plays out of their own end. Assumption, over the course of a 12:30 span, piled on three unanswered goals to suddenly jump ahead 4-2, with the goals coming off the sticks of forwards Christopher Stamlok (00:20), Colin Phillipon (12:10) and Shane Sullivan (15:52).  In an effort to salvage some momentum prior to the end of the period, freshman forward Matt Horan (Methuen, Mass.) converted off an off-man rush with graduate Chris Stevenson, beating Assumption's Drew Benedict over the left shoulder to cut the Greyhound lead to 4-3 entering the third period.

In the third period, Assumption added some insurance on the powerplay at 8:45 on a William Smith goal, and would later finish things off on a Ronny Paragallo empty netter at 17:44.

Kyle Martin takes the loss for the Ravens after making 29 stops on 34 shots, while Drew Benedict claimed the win on the other end after turning aside 26-of-29.

Men's hockey will look for the weekend split with Assumption tomorrow (1/28) afternoon right back at Jason Ritchie Ice Arena for a 1:00 p.m. matinee faceoff.