WINCHENDON, Mass. (2/19/23) - The Franklin Pierce men's hockey team dropped their regular season finale versus Saint Anselm, 4-1 in a Northeast-10 conference battle between in-state rivals on Saturday night at the Jason Ritchie Ice Arena.

With the loss, Franklin Pierce finishes the regular season with a 10-19-2 (7-11-2 NE-10) record, while Saint Anselm concludes their own calendar with a 19-10-3 (13-5-2 NE-10) mark.

Both teams skated to a scoreless draw in the first period. However, the evening's first goal would arrive just 2:57 into the second period, when freshman defender Declan House (Roselle Park, N.J.) threaded an outlet pass to junior Trevor Lawler (East Bridgewater, Mass.), who delivered the puck to a streaking Cody Rumsey (York, Pa.) up the middle. Taking advantage of open ice, Rumsey buried a shot five-hole Hawk netminder Nick Howard, putting the Ravens up 1-0 with their fourth shorthanded goal this season, as well as his 6^th of the season.

However, the Hawks began ramping up the pressure in their offensive zone midway through the second period, which would visibly begin to ware down the Ravens. After numerous counts of failing to get the puck out of their own end, the Hawks would open the floodgates with three unanswered goals just 1:44 apart.. The scoring started with Matt Hayes firing a shot on Kyle Martin (Westford, Mass.) who made an initial save before the puck kicked out to Alec Grace. Andrew Andary cleaned up the loose change and snuck it past Martin for the tying goal on the power play. Saint Anselm wouldn't waste any time after the goal. Will Christensen fed a breakout pass to Matt Hayes, who sniped a shot from the left circle over Martin's shoulder. Hayes added his second point of the night with the go-ahead goal to make it a 2-1 Hawks lead.

They hot streak continued following the back-to-back goals, as defenseman Luke Mix carried the puck behind the Raven net and fed a pass out front, where winger John Myers whacked it into a near gaping cage to make it 3-1 Hawks.

The Ravens attempted to trim the deficit down in the third period, but were overly unsuccessful. Late in the action, Jack Murphy threaded an outlet pass to Max Burum, who then beat Martin blocker side-high to make it a 4-1 Hawks lead. From there, the damage had already been dealt, with the Hawks skating away with the victory.

Kyle Martin suffered the loss in net for the Ravens (9-10-2), stopping 42-of-46 shots he faced. Nick Howard earned the win for the Hawks (16-9-3), turning aside 23-of-24 shots.

Despite the loss, there were still positives on Saturday night. 6 different seniors were honored during the pre-game ceremonies including Vito Carlo (Las Vegas, Nev.), Jason Ladzinski (Norcross, Ga.), Conor Foley (Nahant, Mass.), Josh Kippenhan (Hibbing, Minn.), Dom Norris (Thurmont, Md.), and Jackson Dobek (Natick, Mass.).

The Ravens begin the Northeast-10 Conference postseason with a quarterfinal round matchup at Southern New Hampshire on Tuesday night at Ice Den Arena, with puck drop set for 7:40 p.m.